Thor, Put Your Pants Back On!
by Adele365
Summary: In which Thor is Thor, Loki is Loki, Hawkeye is a pervert and the Captain is just confused. Why is Director Fury considered cuddly? Why is Dr.Banner sleeping on the couch? And why the HELL is Toni Stark the only responsible one here? Some fem!slash, language Being the tales of a gender-swapped Avengers team, based on a group Halloween costume, 2012.
1. Chapter 1

**"Thor, Put Your Pants Back On!"**  
**A fanfiction by Adele365**

**In which Thor is Thor, Loki is Loki, Hawkeye is a pervert and the Captain is just confused. Why is Director Fury considered cuddly? Why is Dr. Banner sleeping on the couch? And why the HELL is Toni Stark the only responsible one here?**

**Being the tales of a gender-swapped Avengers team, based on the personalities and actions of a group Halloween costume, October 2012.**

**Name taken from the tumblr blog of the same name - Read it if you haven't, it's hilarious.**

**Pairings: Loki/Fem!Loki, Fem!Thor/Male! , eventual Fem!Iron Man/Fem!Hawkeye**

**With the gender bending, some of the names are different.**  
**Tony Stark- Toni Stark**  
**Clint Barton- Claire Barton**  
**Steve Rogers- Stephanie Rogers**  
**Bruce Banner- Bryce Banner**  
**Thor is Thor, and Loki is Loki either way, you can't mess with those names...**  
**Male Loki is called Lopt.**

"THOR!" The shrill scream of rage echoed throughout the tower, as various people looked up, then decided to ignore what had become a fairly common occurrence. Less common was the fact that the scream had come, not from her sister Loki, but rather from the room of the usually most poised of the Avengers, one Stephanie Rogers. A gong-like sound followed, along with a booming laugh and a scream of animalistic rage. Thor came hurtling out of the captains room, laughing madly the whole way, followed closely by her latest victim. To the onlooker, it was immediately apparent why Stephanie was so spitting mad, as her hair was trapped in a rats next of color and her clothing mussed. This in itself was a massive issue for the time-locked avenger, since she was still used to forties sensibilities when it came to her appearance and personal space. In this case, however, both her and Thor were in pajamas, meaning that once again, a member of the team had woken up to being cuddled (read:groped) by the Asgardian Goddess of Thunder.

"I do not understand, dearest Captain! In Asgard it is customary to sleep with one's closest friends! Why do you not wish to sleep with me? Am I unsuited to your friendship in some way?" the rather bewildered Thor attempted to reason with her latest teddy bear as she thundered through the halls of Stark Tower at six in the morning.

"Friendship? You were groping me! That's not what friends do here, Thor!" came the enraged response.

At this point, the observer decided to step in, jumping down from the rafters where she had been watching the entire thing before she fell off of them from laughter. "Yeah, Thor, she's got a man for that, remember?" Claire Barton then found herself the target of the Cap's ire.

"Not. Helping. Hawkeye. Just go back to your nest and stay out of this!"

"Yes, ma'am, Captain America, Sir!" came the snarky response, followed by the assassin's hasty retreat. Meanwhile, Thor had found a hiding place, or a least a meat-shield in her sister Loki, who managed to look pristine and classy even as she was being grabbed from behind by the shaking Thor. The annoyed look on her face changed to one of understanding as she saw her unlikely friend round the corner, the captain's rage having turned by this point into resigned ire. Laughing, Loki turned herself immaterial, causing her sister to face plant on the corridor floor, wrapped in her sleeping-cape and unbalanced, having been leaning heavily on her trickster of a sister. Adding insult to injury, Loki had tied Thor's cloak in a bow, leaving her literally gift-wrapped for the revenge of her team mate. Seeing this, Stephanie simply laughed, thanking Loki for her help and bonking Thor on the head with her shield.

"I should have locked the door, I know what she's like," the captain began, only to be interrupted by their annoyed and sleepy landlord, whose floor they had ended up on in the course of their chase.

"You did lock your door. Thor just broke the lock.. Again. Also, you woke me up. Why have you woken me up? I gave you separate floors for the express purpose of NOT WAKING ME UP at oh dark thirty in the morning. What the hell, ladies?" Yes, Toni Stark was decidedly Not Amused.

Toni Stark had had an... Interesting... morning. It had actually started in what should have been the night before, when she was awoken at two am by Bryce Banner's timid knock on her bedroom door. The tiny scientist was depressed and upset, though Toni could tell it wasn't a true emergency since her tower, and manhattan for that matter, was still in tact. Still, she had spent a good hour with Bryce sobbing on her bed about the latest guy she picked up in a bar, then lost as they got cold feet at the idea of sleeping with the Hulk. Usually, Bryce was calm and collected, the veritable Zen Guru of the group, except when it came to guys dumping her because of the Hulk. Toni wasn't sure why Bryce kept trying, but she finally got the girl out of her room by three thirty, only to be awoken again less than three hours later by the Captain's shrieks of rage. Her origin plan had been to sleep on, this being a Saturday. Alas, 'twas not to be.

At Toni's outburst, Thor at least had the good grace to look ashamed. " I am sorry, Daughter of Stark. We have been ungrateful guests in your home. I will endeavor to be better in future. As all are awake, may we now break our fast? While you lack our hearty Asgardian fare, these jacks of flapping are quite excellent, as are your eggs of chicken mixed with cow excretion and various vegetables!"

"Pancakes. They are called pancakes, Thor. And omelets. Please don't make me lose what little appetite i actually have right now," came Stephanie's tired response. "I am already sick of your strange customs today, especially those involving inappropriate cuddling."

"For Ass-gard! To Breakfast we must go, for the dearest Captain of the Americas needs her coffee, and so do I!" Hawkeye chose this moment to re-enter the conversation, slapping Thor on the ass and neatly ducking a swipe from the captain's Vibranium shield, or "head-whacker" as she liked to call it. At this, Toni finally gave a huff of laughter, and they all headed up to breakfast, passing Bryce in a snoring pile on the break room couch, where she had been since leaving Toni's bedroom.

**A/N: Hey, I know this chapter is short. I have about 35k of this written, it was my NaNo project this year until I got really sick... Let me know what you think, I can still edit what I write before I put new chapters up! Also, please forgive any errors, I have no beta reader... thanks! And happy holidays!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: And the action (sort of) begins! I'm going to be posting a lot of short chapters for a while, this is sort of a drabble-fic with a plot. Which doesn't show up until later, because the entire team is so OOC that character development is necessary. A lot of what happens with the team, especially the stuff that Thor does, actually happened to those of us in the costume. We were all method acting for about a month before and after Halloween, so I have plenty of material!**

**Oh, right... Disclaimer! I don't own Marvel! I am not, nor will I ever be Stan Lee! If I ever achieve anything close to his level of awesome, I will consider my life complete. I did not own Marvel six hours ago when I posted the first chapter, either. Woo... Sad...**

**Also, while I'm not going to beg for reviews, they are always appreciated! Therefore, shout-outs to:**

**1st reviewer: Constance Bonacieux**

**1st fav: mad 4 the doctor**

**thanks also to starseer7296!**

-XXXXX-

That afternoon, Loki was wandering around New York city, surveying her would-be domain in part, but mostly just in search of a decent cup of coffee. The autumn leaves crunched beneath her feet, and the occasional passerby did double-takes as they recognized the former super villainess, then decided they must have been wrong, or that the simply didn't care. Cutting through central park, she heard a whistling sound and turned her head to see a limp body falling from the sky.

The lack of garish coloring told Loki that the falling person could not be one of her aerially inclined pseudo-teammates, as did the fact that the body was male upon closer inspection. The man was dressed in black, with hints of gold and green, and falling beside him was a suspiciously familiar horned helmet. Loki immediately smelled the potential for mischief, and hurried over to the landing site, coffee temporarily forgotten.

Arriving at the body, Loki confirmed her suspicions, as her curiosity and amusement steadily grew. Lying on the ground was a man identical to her but with dark hair, like when she deigned to take male form. Looking up, she saw a light blue portal rapidly closing, the color reminding her of her precious Tesseract. Flipping her doppelgänger over, he groaned and opened his eyes, muttering in Old Norse.

"Where am I?" came a silky baritone, only slightly marred by pain and hoarseness, as if he had been screaming for a long while before he lost consciousness in his fall.

"You, my dear me, are on Midgard," she replied in English, "And you had better have a good reason, for gender changes aside, we know the consequences of paradoxes, and they are not fun."

"I know not of what you speak. This does not look like the Midgard I have seen, and I know nothing of having caused any paradoxes. The last I remember, my accursed brother Thor had let me fall from the Bifrost. I know not how long it has been since then, it felt like years. And now you say you are me, and I am on Midgard? You make no sense."

At this, Loki was shocked. She remembered falling from the Bifrost, falling for an age into the cruel clutches of Thanos, who had twisted and burrowed into her mind, subverting her will to his and to that of the Tesseract and driving her, admittedly already unstable, mind over the edge into a fractured mess of blind rage. She wasn't proud of her time under the thrall of the Tesseract, but that was behind her now, her mind having been cleansed of Thanos's treachery by her father and Heimdahl, then sent back to Midgard to learn from and repent her sins. The Avengers, along with her brother, had been fairly welcoming, with the exception of Nate Romanoff, who had decided to take an extended mission to the Middle East instead of living in a house with the woman who had "bewitched" him with her staff. Apparently, this Loki was from a different universe, or at least a different timeline, and if she could spare him her pain and her mistakes, she would have to at least make the attempt. "Tell me, other-Loki, were you born a male then?"

"Yes woman, of course I was. I am Loki Odi-...Laufeyson, Brother to Thor Odinson and once King of Asgard! I know I am a trickster, but you take your jest too far, and I am in no mood to play at being female." At this, the female Loki burst into peals of laughter, tears leaking from her eyes as she fell to the ground beside her double.

"You mean, you mean to say that Thor is also a man where you come from? Oh, dear doppelgänger, you will absolutely LOVE meeting my sister! For I am Loki Laufeydottir, sister to Thor Odinsdottir, once Queen of Asgard, and you, dear me, are almost certainly in a different universe. And lucky you are at that, for if events had played out for you as they did for me, that hellish fall from the Bifrost would be neither the worst of, not the end to your pain. And if you ever meet a creature called Thanos, stay far, far away, for he is too evil even for our temperaments, and nothing but bad comes from that relationship. The dude has a hard-on for Death, for crying out loud! Not our daughter Hel, the actual Death."

"Point taken, I will avoid this Thanos. It seems like I am far enough away from my own version of him in any case, indeed in another universe. If that is so, I am not overly saddened, for it also takes me far from my so-called family of kidnappers and liars. I still know not if I was ever a son to the All-Father, or simply some hostage taken against Laufey's good behavior."

"If your family is anything like mine, and it seems it is, then Odin loved you, and Frigga more so. Thor never knew you were not his brother, and while he may have thought you strange, and for certain my sister at least is an unsanitary and uncouth lout, he did love you. But that is moot now, for I know not of a way to get you home. We may need the team's help on this one, so for now I will take you to the Avengers tower, you may stay in my suite if Stark will not assign your own. For certainly I have seen all that you have to offer..." This last was said with a devilish smirk that reminded the male Loki far too much of his own, and it was then that he began to truly believe his mirror's fantastic story. He answered with a smirk of his own and gestured for her to help him up.

"Lead on, fair lady. For certainly you are the fairest queen in this mortal hovel, considering the only other Goddess around is Thor and the mortal women surely cannot compare." Loki was at this point gesticulating wildly, bowing and scraping to his female counterpart and current hostess like a troubadour of Odin's court. Rewarded with a laugh, he linked arms with the ginger goddess and let her lead him in this strange world. "But how came you to live here, on Midgard? Are we truly so unwelcome in Asgard as I had feared? You said the All-Father and the Queen still love us, so why here?"

"Aah, that is a bit of a long story, and one best told over coffee. I was almost to the cafe when you fell, so let me take you there and explain things," she replied. Leading him to a local shop and getting a booth for two, she proceeded to tell him of Thanos's tortures, her failed invasion of Earth and Odin's punishment. "Truth be told, I could go home, but I have found myself happier here then I ever was on Asgard. I am far from Odin's judging eye, and Frigga comes by the Bifrost to visit on occasion, along with Thor's oafish friends." The two Lokis continued to talk for over an hour, as their coffee grew cold and the waitress, who was friends with the female Loki, made plans to interrogate her about her "cute new boyfriend." Meanwhile, both were unaware of the picture they made together.

-XXXXX-

As Loki met herself in the park, she was not the only one to have noticed his entrance. A hundred kilometers off the coast of New York city, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier was on high alert, having spotted readings of a portal uncannily similar to the one that opened over the city half a year before. On the bridge stood a large man with massive amounts of hair on both his head and face, one eye covered by an eyepatch with horrific scars showing around the edges. Dom Fury turned to a random SHIELD agent and barked "Get Stark on the phone, and give her the coordinates to that damned portal. It's in her own back yard, she should be the one calling me!" Just as he spoke, he heard Toni's voice over the PA.

"Hey, Fury. You catch that portal? Thor and I were there ten minutes after it opened, but nothing there. Looks like something small might have fallen, maybe a person, and Thor says she 'feels her sister's presence' or some other Asgardian mumbo-jumbo. Says it feels weird, though. We're trying to get ahold of Loki to find out more, we'll get back to you. And if that is one of your peons on the other line, don't blame me if I make them cry. To call me at this point is just stupid." At this, Fury sighed, but resigned himself to another sobbing intern in his office. Why they all thought he was so damned nice was a mystery to him, he was a stern and macho leader, damn it all! Frankly, he needed to stop having interns and junior agents dealing with the Avengers, especially Stark, but after Phil Coulson's retirement and faked death, he was missing his one good eye and he wasn't having a good time of it.

He didn't really begrudge the man his retirement, Coulson had been through enough for SHIELD and he had that cellist to go home to now, but he was finding it impossible to replace the man. Agent Hill butted heads with the entire team save Banner, and the rest of the team made a game of it to see who could make more of his minions cry, hell they didn't even try to hide the mother fucking scoreboard, and Toni Stark had been top of the lists for months, closely followed by the purple menace, Barton. Ever since Romanoff went off on assignment, Barton had been out of control, pranking the hell out of SHIELD, the Avengers team, and anyone else she could get her hands on.

And now, more Loki trouble. Fury was never going to truly trust Loki, but this didn't seem to be her type of trouble. She had learned her lesson with the Chitauri, and nothing particularly disastrous had happened as of yet. At this point, the Director was willing to wait and see what the team came up with. He had trusted them once, and he would just have to do it again.

-XXXXX-

Two hours after the portal's brief appearance, Toni and Thor returned to Avengers tower, somewhat worried after a fruitless search for either the result of the portal, or Thor's sister. Thor in particular was beginning to panic, while Toni was just tired and annoyed.

"But, Where has my Sister Loki gone? It is not like her to be absent from areas of great trouble, what if she was kidnapped or pulled through? I do not wish to lose her again!" As the Goddess built herself into a frenzy, Toni saw the object of their search walk through the door, along with someone else, a man dressed in black Asgardian clothes with gold and green accents, carrying a version of Loki's infamous Reindeer helmet.

"Oh, gods, don't tell me there's another one!" Toni half-exclaimed, half groaned. Thor perked at this, and turned to see her sister, twice.

"Sister! Why have you duplicated yourself? I have seen you as a man before, but today is no day for your pranks. There was a portal in the city, and something came through. Did you see it? Did you do it?"

"Thank you, dear sister, for your vote of confidence," came the dry retort of the female Loki. "Yes, I saw it, no, I didn't do it, and as for what came through, this is... me. From another universe where we are brothers, apparently."

"So, there are two of them?" Toni turned around and promptly began banging her head against the wall, only for her head to be caught before it could hit.

"Two of who?" Claire asked, wandering into the entrance hall via the ceiling vent with a towel wrapped around her hair, only to pull a sudden and dramatic double-take at the arrangement of people there. "Wait, two of Loki? Ooh, this is gonna be fu~un! What'cha up to, girlie?"

"I believe that last comment was directed at me, and I must inform you madam, that I am in fact male. I am not some copy of your friend, though i am certainly flattered to be compared to such a beautiful lady." With this, the male Loki promptly changed into an identical copy of his female companion, the only difference being the style of their clothes. This caused a variety of reactions, ranging from Thor's booming laughter, to Claire's surprised guffaw, to Toni's exasperated sigh as her head thunked against the wall once more. The most surprising reaction, however, was that of Loki herself. The ginger goddess promptly grabbed her double by the hand and dragged her from the room with a positively sinful grin at her friends.

"I'll be in my bunk."

"Dibs on telling Fury!" Claire shouted, her grin almost as wicked as Loki's, "And I'm sparing NO details!" Before anyone could stop her, she ran giggling from the room to the tower's communications center.


	3. Chapter 3

**And the next chapter begins...**

**As per usual, I own nothing.**

**Thanks to everyone who read, favorited, followed, or especially reviewed!**

Back on the Helicarrier, Dom Fury was at a loss for words. Well, at a loss for words fit for polite company, in any case.

"She's What?!" He growled at the phone. "I don't believe I heard you correctly, Agent Barton."

"I repeat, Sir, Loki is currently having private relations of a hot and heavy nature with a male version of her from an alternate universe, who apparently fell through the portal over Central Park this morning as Loki was on her way to get coffee. From what we gleaned before they left, this Loki never allied with Thanos or invaded New York, and is at least a year behind us in his personal timeline. The two were flirting heavily the entire time, and our Loki's last words were 'I'll be in my bunk.' I'm not particularly inclined to interrupt at this time, Sir." Even as she attempted to make her report professional, Hawkeye was obviously having far too much fun with the situation to remain entirely professional, and Fury wasn't entirely sure he could blame her. The idea of another Loki had temporarily halted his mental processes, and the idea of the two of them, together, frankly creeped him out.

"Well, Agent Barton, since they don't seem to be destroying anything-"

"-except possibly a bed, Sir."

"-since they don't seem to be destroying anything, SHIELD will leave them alone for now, but keep an eye on them. I want regular reports, just as you have been sending on our Loki. Just include the both of them now. If they mean to cause trouble, I want to be prepared, understood?"

"Yes, sir, reports on both Lokis and whatever they do together. Understood perfectly, Sir!" With that, Hawkeye hung up, snickering, leaving Fury with the sinking sensation that her next few reports were going to read like bad porn.

Meanwhile, Loki and the rest of the Avengers were assembled in the living room, having dragged the duo from their now-shared bedroom to decide what they should do with their new guest.

"Don't you guys have a middle name, or something? We can't call both of you Loki," began Toni.

"Why not?" The two Lokis asked at the same time.

"That's why," was Toni's dry response. "Because it will make it far too confusing for everyone who's not you." The group continued to attempt a different name for the male Loki, having decided that their Loki deserved seniority in this universe. They were getting nowhere fast, when suddenly:

"Loptr. Or Lopt for ease of pronunciation." This helpful suggestion came from the least likely source, as Hawkeye walked into the room from reporting to the Director. "It's his other name in the Norse mythos, and it sounds just as cool. In any case, it's better than Frosty the Cream-sickle, and some of the others I heard on my way here."

"Damn, Hawkeye, you can be useful!" exclaimed Toni, as the Loki's faces finally changed from annoyance to consideration.

"Indeed, Lopt is an acceptable name. I thank you, Hawk-eyed one. Are you the Heimdahl of your group, then, to have such a name and know what others do not?" The make Loki, now named Lopt replied, deliberately ignoring Toni, from whom the 'Frosty the Cream-Sickle' abomination had come.

"Heimdahl? Nah, Thor's told me about her. I'm nowhere near as awesome or powerful as that chick. I'm just a hella shot with a bow and arrow, and disgustingly farsighted. Thanks for the compliment though! Also, Hawkeye's kind of my call sign, like Toni is Iron Man and Steph's the Captain. You can call me Claire, since you are going to be living here with us." Came the cheerful reply. As she spoke, Claire had bounced over to the couch and flopped down half-way on top of Toni, landing a bit harder than necessary as revenge for her earlier comment. "Also, ignore the peanut gallery over here, I am so useful. Saved everybody's ass a few times at least, just like we all have."

At Claire's sudden switch from the most sane-seeming and adult person in the room to a bouncy cuddly teenager, Lopt looked a little scared. "Is this going to happen to me, if I stay here?" He asked his unfazed female counterpart.

"No, that's just her way of coping. She's one of the only members of the group without superpowers, and the only one left that is actually a loyal agent of the government here. She actually is probably the most mature, she just doesn't show it. The same goes for Toni Stark, for the most part. For now, though, I think you have had enough exposure to the aptly-named peanut gallery, so lets go and I will answer more of your questions in private." On their way to the door, those questions began, as a full sized Cylon with a cheese tray came up to offer Lopt his burden. As the couple left, those left in the room could clearly hear Lopt's confusion.

"What was that? It looked like a smaller version of my Destroyer, and was that... cheese?" This question set the group off laughing about the origins of Dairy the Cheese Cylon, whose roots were based in the Great Whiteboard War that was still technically ongoing.

/ Flashback \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

"TESSERACT MISSING. I WANT IT BACK BY SUNDAY, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY. THIS MEANS YOU, LOKI!" Read the break/living room whiteboard one morning when the group shuffled through on their search for coffee. Luckily, they knew what it was talking about, and so did not start a mass panic at the lost super-powered cube. About a month after moving to Avengers tower, Thor realized that the power of the Tesseract, in the right hands, could be used for renewable power, and petitioned her father to at least give a sample to Toni Stark to test.

The result was the Mini-Tesseract, which despite its name was about the same size as the original, with less than a thousandth of its power. Toni used it to improve her arc reactor and other green technologies, and thanks to her research, had most of New York running without a massive carbon footprint. The problem with this set-up, somewhat predictably, came from Loki, who had spent so long being obsessed with the Tesseract that having one in the tower was like a heroin addict living with a drug supplier. Therefore, the Mini-Tesseract went missing on a fairly regular basis, and was always found in the same place, Loki's room. Usually she was using it as a nightlight. So, they were all used to the Mini-Tess going missing, and didn't think too much of it.

That changed the next day. Instead of Toni getting her Tesseract back, there was an answering message: "NEVER! IT'S MIIIINE! YOU WILL NEVER GET IT BACK! MUAHAHAHA!" With an accompanying picture of Loki in the reindeer hat, rubbing her hands together and laughing evilly. It was even animated.

"YOU WANT TO PLAY? WE CAN PLAY, BUT I WARN YOU, THE KID GLOVES ARE OFF. IT'S HAMMER TIME, BITCH!" Came Toni's response the next day.

"THAT'S FINE, I LOVE THE AGE OF HAMMERS!" Bluff about Thor called, Toni proceeded to disable the locks in Loki's apartment while she was out with Lopt. After retrieving the Tesseract, she may or may not have forgotten to re-enable them, meaning that her threats of Thor were eventually carried out as Loki kept waking up to Godly Sister Cuddles at three in the morning.

After the initial whiteboard war, the team decided that it had been fun, and began posting random challenges in the break room, the most infamous of which became the Cheese Poll. The board was split in two, one half pro-cheese and one half against it. Loki's response was to draw a toaster-model Cylon from the show Battlestar Galactica on the anti-cheese side, a move that Toni didn't agree with in the least. In an effort to prove Loki wrong, Stark wasn't seen for a week, and when she did come out, she was followed by a life-size Cylon butler, carrying a tray of cheese. As the robot, red eye flashing menacingly and pointed fingers flexing, offered its tray to the dumbstruck Goddess of Mischief, she admitted defeat on this point, but the team decided to keep the Cylon, christened Dairy-bot or Dairy for short, around. Unfortunately its limited programming only allowed it to offer people cheese, and Toni thought it was too funny to change into something useful. While the Whiteboard Wars continued, nothing had yet managed to beat the cheese cylon for lasting effect.

/ End Flashback \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  
-

As Loki finished the story, Lopt was shaking in silent laughter. "These people seem more like your type of friends, but you say Thor fits in well here?" How does he-sorry she even get the jokes?"

"Oh, don't worry, Thor may be female, but she's still incredibly manly. And the answer is she doesn't get the jokes. It's more fun watching her try to figure out what is going on than it is actually making the joke itself. I'm sure you will see this for yourself soon. She's more like your brother than you know, I am certain." Loki was glad that Lopt seemed comforted by this, as it meant he was not nearly as far gone as she had once been. "Come, Lopt, let us go out. I will show you more of this world you live on. For now, at least. We may get you home one day, if you wish it."

"You know, I am not entirely sure that I do..." With that thoughtful response, the two left the tower to explore the bustling anthill that was New York City.


	4. Chapter 4

**No ownings, here, nope nope nope...**

**I know this is really short, but I kind of had to end it where I did. To do otherwise ruins the joke.**

"Soo... How about them Lokis?" Claire's commentary was met with universal groans from the rest of the group, who threw popcorn at her head for interrupting the dramatic, romantic scene in the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. "What? We all know she's in his head, anyway!"

"Thor doesn't." Came the reply from, surprisingly, Stephanie. "We've tried to explain it, but she doesn't understand the concept. Much like how I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of space ships. When I was frozen, they were barely an idea at the Stark Expo, the kind of thing that Red Skull might dream about. Now we've got Iron Man suits and space shuttles and television is showing stuff like this!"

"Ooh, just you wait! I bet Thor starts going on patrols when we start Buffy the Vampire Slayer!" Claire snickered as she said this, and Toni almost fell off of the couch.

"Well, if we are going by out-of-date fashion sense to tell a vampire, we'll have to stop her from staking Steph. Not that you aren't lovely, dear, but it's not exactly 2012 vogue material." Toni snarked from the floor by the couch where she had ended up. Claire's giggle fit took a while to die down from this, but eventually she paused the show and turned to the others.

"No, seriously. I like Lopt, I actually think it will be good for both of them, but SHIELD is a bee hive of worry right now and Fury is freaked, but won't admit it. What do you guys think of this situation?" These statements caused the others to stop laughing and think, except for Thor, of course.

"I have always wanted a younger brother! Your Midgard mythologies say that we should have had one, he can be my Baldur! Thor loves all of her family, adopted or from an alternate universe, it matters not!" The dirty blonde warrior boomed, waving her arms for emphasis and almost knocking Toni off of the couch again. "Now, resume the tale of your Starship Galactica, and someone come cuddle with me. I wish to share in the warmth of my friends!" At this, the others relaxed, and Claire slipped in between Thor and Toni, slipping an arm around each. Stephanie looked the most pensive, and when she spoke she chose her words with care.  
"I think, that we should watch them, but Claire may be right. They could be good for each other, having someone who understands their position completely. And neither of them seems inclined to rampage anywhere."

"I think they're cute. Gods, what an adorably weird couple. So narcissistic, but so Loki!" Toni's words were the final of the night, and they went back to their show with a more comfortable air, having decided to wait and see before doing anything.

That is, until Claire suddenly sat back up, having settled a little closer to her two friends after the conversation ended.

"Thor?"

"Yes, friend Hawkeye?"

"Why are you not wearing any pants? Or a bra?"

"Why would I wear pants, friend Hawkeye? It is not cold!"

"...your nipples say otherwise, Thor."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello fair readers! After a break for the holidays, and a further break to get over the holidays, I have returned! And as a reward for the break, you get a time skip, a new character, and more awkward Thor! Huzzah!**

**Anyway, I don't own the Avengers, duh...**

-XXXXX-

That day, Loki and Lopt were out in the city, Loki cackling maniacally as she performed one of the most cruel and unusual acts possible...forcing a man to shop for clothes. Lopt had fallen out of the sky with nothing but his helmet and Asgardian armor, and since he wasn't making more out of thin air or getting any from home, he needed clothing. Currently, Loki had him trapped in a dressing room as she threw shirts and pants over the top of the door, sticking to neutral dark colors, greens and golds as with her own wardrobe. Once she gave him a red top matching her sister's cloak and, as expected, was met with an impressive string of curse words in Old Norse.

Eventually, Lopt had had enough. "Damn it all, Woman, do I not have enough clothing? I seem to have tried on half of the store by now!" At this, Loki looked sheepishly at the pile, and agreed that, at least for now, he had more than enough. Using a blank piece of plastic and a bit of magic, she convinced the shop girl that they had paid for the clothing, with Lopt looking on approvingly. Sending the bags home with a wave of her hand, the two of them were left standing on the street outside the store, both hungry from the day's shopping.

At this, Lopt took the lead, taking Loki to a restaurant Toni had recommended and treating her to dinner with his similarly illusionary money. As she looked around the restaurant, she noticed other couples giving them looks. "They think we're together... and we've already convinced my sister and the team of it," she began, only to be shushed by Lopt's finger on her lips.

"And who is to say we should not be together? Who else can understand you like I can? Who else could I ever find more attractive? Besides, I already know what you like." As he spoke, he slipped his finger to that certain spot on the back of her neck, the one she never told anyone of, and caressed it in just the right way. Her doubts about the fun to be had in the relationship disappeared, and she smirked up at Lopt.

"Want to give the nice mortals a show?" She brought his lips to hers, and the two were lost, until they were interrupted by a rather too amused, not to mention slightly flushed waiter, who arrived with their wine and appetizers shortly before they slipped entirely beyond the realm of PG-13. They'd have to save that for the relative privacy of their suite, with perhaps a sound amplifying spell or two just to screw with the rest of the tower's inhabitants.

-XXXXXX-  
-XXXXXX-

Lopt had been staying at the Avengers tower for about six months, making it approximately a year after the Battle of New York, when the next super-crisis hit the team. This crisis came, not in the form of a super-villain or alien invasion, but rather in the form of...bureaucracy.

(After six months of porno reports from Claire, that had no real information in them at all, Director Fury decided that the Avengers tower needed a new Agent/Live in Babysitter. Unfortunately for him, he had no remaining agents that could handle the team, after Coulson retired. The only agent he had that was competent enough was Hill, but he and Toni couldn't be in the same building for a meeting, let alone to live. Besides, he needed Hill with him on the Helicarrier. Therefore, it was a relatively junior Agent that he was forced to send. He gave it three weeks, and at least that many months of psychiatric treatment, but if his man got enough information for a decent report, he would call it a win. And send a disposable Agent.)

One morning (and a Monday morning, at that), The Avengers, Loki, and Lopt were rudely awoken by the man who shall henceforth be known as Agent Redshirt. The reason for his sadly short-lived name is the method of his awakening: since he couldn't access the PA, courtesy of JARVIS, he decided to walk through the halls outside the teams' bedrooms with an air horn. As the grumpy superheroes and villains stumbled our of bed, he shoved a memo underneath their doors "requesting" their presence in an "official team meeting" that morning. By these actions, he officially secured his place in the hall of fame as the worst-tortured agent ever to be inflicted upon the team.

Approximately an hour after the air-horning, Agent Redshirt walked into the break room. Dressed impeccably in his regulation suit and tie, he set his briefcase on the table, only to be interrupted... by Lopt's light snores. He quickly realized that Lopt was the only one in the room, having fallen asleep on the couch the night before on the way back from a hot chocolate run for him and Loki. Redshirt angrily approached the sleeping God, only to be met with a startled scream of shock and an energy blast when he was three feet away. As the Agent scrambled away, Lopt's blast narrowly missed him, instead hitting the 46 inch flatscreen on the wall behind him. Peeking around the door frame, the team cringed, as Toni fell to the ground on her knees. "Nooooo! Why the TV? I love that TV!"

"The hell, Toni? You're a gazillionaire. You can buy another TV," Claire stared incredulously at her friend, then turned back to the equally entertaining sight of Agent Redshirt, crab-scuttling away from the sleepy and violent Lopt. As his panic, and therefore their entertainment died down, the team stopped spying and made their way into the break room, defiantly dressed in pajamas and sleeping shirts.

"There you are, team. You are late for your scheduled morning meeting, this will be going in my report to Director Fury," began Agent Redshirt. "I am Agent *blah blah*, your new handler. You, Agent Hawkeye, have been found in contempt with the quality and content of your reports. In the words of the Director, he is sick and mother fucking tired of reading your mother fucking porn on his mother fucking boat, and has sent me to instill some *ahem,* discipline to this rag-tag group of yours." As the windbag of an Agent prattled on, the team gave each other significantly amused looks, and Loki walked over to her boyfriend, sat down next to him and rewarded him for their morning show, giving the rest of the group a less welcome show to take its place. In the meantime, Hawkeye had gone stone-cold professional and marched up to the Agent in her sheep-print pajama pants and tight purple camisole, her impressive bust lining up even with the shorter man's nose.

"My face is up here, sirrah, and I resent your implications that my reports to Director Dom-Dom have been anything less than true. Live here for a few days, you will hear the truth of it. Toni, have you decided where Agent... Redshirt is going to sleep, yet? I have a few suggestions..." After which her stony countenance broke in to laughter and an evil grin befitting the Agent's new neighbors split her face from cheek to cheek.

"You're not funny, Claire!" Came Toni's muffled response, belied by her shaking shoulders, face pressed into Thor's shoulder. Controlling herself, she continued. "I do, however, agree with your idea of room placement. Now stop suffocating the poor man with your huge... tracts of land."

Agent Redshirt regained his composure at this, backing away from the evilly smirking Hawkeye, only to back into a solid wall of muscle. He turned around and looked up into the mildly grumpy face of Nate Romanoff, who looked at the Agent, then down to his front, where his plush blue bathrobe was covered in tea. Shuffling over to the couch, he gave Lopt a curt nod, kicking off his bunny slippers and sitting down before looking expectantly at the somewhat terrified Agent.

"When did he get back? I thought the Wolf was on a long term mission?" The Agent turned to the rest of the room, only to see dumbfounded looks on the rest of the team, except for Claire, who had already sat down on his lap, looking more comfortable than she had in ages, ever since he left. After a quiet conversation in Russian, during which it looked suspiciously like Nate was getting chewed out, Claire turned to the Agent and answered.

"Last night. And he didn't even tell me!" She looked distinctly put out by this, and Nate had the good grace to look ashamed. Seeing his face, she brightened again and hugged him. "It's okay, I forgive you. Just don't ever leave for that long again!" He nodded, and she cuddled deeper into his chest, blatantly ignoring the rapidly cooling tea.

"Huh. So he apparently doesn't hate you anymore?" Toni's comment was directed at Loki, but was answered by Nate, by way of Claire.

"Nah, he saw worse while he was away. He gets angry, but doesn't see the point in holding a grudge. He also mentions that you were bat shit crazy at the time, so technically could call on the insanity plea." Nate burst into silent laughter at the affronted look on Loki's face, before she stopped, shrugged, and seemed to agree with him. That anti-climax taken care of, the team turned back to the tiny agent they had been deliberately ignoring, who had puffed himself up in irritation, looking alarmingly like he was about to explode with indignant rage. At this, Thor walked over to the man with a concerned look on her face.

"Are you well, Agent of SHIELD? You look to be in some danger. You wished to speak with us this morn, so get on with it so I may have my Waffles. Have you had Waffles? They are a delicious Midgardian delicacy!" Loki walked over and clapped her hand over Thor's mouth to stop her sister's rambling, only to remove it in disgust as she licked Loki's hand in retaliation.

"Sister, we cannot have waffles now. You broke the waffle maker again yesterday, remember?" Her comment was met with groans and an exclamation of exasperation from Toni.

"Dear gods, we're going to have to make one out of Vibranium, aren't we? It might be cheaper in the long run, considering how many we have gone through since someone introduced Thor to waffles. First the TV, now this?" Her complaints trailed off into a wordless scream of rage as she sat on the couch next to Nate and Claire, followed by the rest of the group, leading to the inevitable group annoyance as they realized Thor had forgotten to wear shorts under her sleep shirt, again.

At the sight of the Goddess of Thunder's fluorescent pink panties, accompanied by her attentive and impatient look, the Agent finally gave up, realizing that as first assignments went, dealing with this team was going to be very different and much more work than he was used to with his intern group back at the Helicarrier. Little did he know, just how right he was.

**Yes, Coulson retired. Because Agent Phil Coulson is immortal and awesome and cannot die. That's canon anyway, he's leading the new SHIELD TV show. (Thank you, Joss!)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hmm... I would call this chapter filler, but this story has no plot to speak of. In any case, enjoy the double update and the mindless random humor!**

-XXXXXX-

In what had become a regular occurrence, the inhabitants of Avengers tower were awoken at an ungodly hour by the sound of screaming. Distorted by the Iron Man suit's speakers and played through JARVIS's PA system at top volume, Toni's shrieks of rage were terrifying as she came home from an overseas mission at five in the morning. As she approached the tower from the east, it became increasingly apparent to her that the pink glow of the tower was not just a reflection of the sunrise, but rather a coat of shiny, baby pink paint. As she wondered who would do something like this, and prepared to blame Darcy and the Lokis, she rounded the corner to the landing balcony and was met with two sights: her "Mission Accomplished" banner was hanging above the door to her penthouse lounge, and hanging below it was a new banner, painted in messy purple scrawl with the words "ca-caw, motherfuckers!"

"HAWKEYE, YOU DIE NOW!" Came the booming voice, answered by Claire's maniacal laughter, tired as she was from painting the tower over the course of the night. Pulling a rope, a third banner fell beneath the other two, saving the quirky assassin from certain death: "It's water soluble..." At this, Toni landed, pushed Claire down the stairs, and went to wake up Thor to ask for a rain shower. Of course, Thor was already awake along with everyone else, and refused to clean the tower until she, along with everyone else, had had a chance to see it. As the team, sans Claire who was still at the base of the stairs, made their way out to the street to get a good view of their pink headquarters, Toni saw something that finally made her laugh: Nate Romanoff was trying to hide his yawn and ran a hand through his hair, leaving a streak of pink paint over the top of his head. She shook her head and went out to enjoy the view with the rest of the team.

Besides, she might be laughing now, but that didn't mean Claire wouldn't be finding her favorite car filled with birdseed within the next few days...

-XXXXX-

One night, Toni and Claire had pulled out their knitting and begun to work on it. Seeing this, Thor came over and stared at them, seemingly mesmerized by the needles and colorful yarn. After about ten minutes of this, Thor still hadn't said anything, so Toni decided to.

"Yes, Thor? Is there something you want?" Thor seemed almost startled by Toni's voice, and immediately asked:

"What manner of craft is this? Your string is becoming cloth! Can any mortal do such a thing?" At this, Loki finally spoke up from where she had been watching from the side of the room.

" Prjóna , sister. Frigga tried to teach you this many a time, but you refused to learn. I believe she gave up after you wrapped Odin's staff in bright red yarn because you had not the patience for the craft." Loki sounded half amused and half pained by the memory, for it was her that Odin chose to punish for that escapade, for 'not stopping her sister.' It was that incident, among others, that inspired her to become a trickster in the first place, thinking that if she was going to be blamed anyway, she might as well actually have some fun.

"No, prjóna was boring! This looks much more enjoyable, and if it is not, it is at least a challenge I must face. Now, what do you mortals call it?" Thor turned back to the dumbstruck mortals on the couch, who seemed to be trying to imagine a young Thor learning to knit.

"Um, it's called knitting, Thor. Would you like to learn how?" asked Toni, already picturing the hours of amusement as Thor tried to figure out how it worked. "I can teach you, here. Have my extra pair of needles and this yarn, and I will show you how to get started."

"This yarn is blue. I do not like blue, I require red yarn!" Thor whined in her booming voice, as if expecting someone to jump up and fulfill her request.

"Well, tough cookies. You get red when you have learned how to knit. Same goes for nice yarns, they are harder to work with," chastised the newly designated knitting teacher. "Now, make a loop around this stick, it's called a needle, then stick the other one in, loop around that, slide this off and pull it back out. Then do it again." As Toni tried to demonstrate her directions, Claire fell off of the couch laughing, and Loki shook silently in her place in the corner.

"So...dirty!" Claire finally gasped out in response to Toni and Thor's questioning looks. Toni thought back over what she had said and promptly turned bright red with suppressed laughs, but Thor just looked confused.

"Dirty? I see no dirt on this yarn, even if it is blue. It seems clean to me!" Thor's response elicited yet more giggles from Claire, who was still lying on the floor, occasionally saying random words like "stick it in" and "twist it around," not even trying to regain her composure. Eventually though, the group was relatively quiet again, a television show running forgotten in the background as the rest of them watched Thor actually sit still, devoting utter focus to her attempt at knitting. Of course, the peace was not to last, as fifteen minutes into her project a loud snap was heard from Thor's area of the couch. Looking over, she had somehow managed to stab herself with the broken half of one knitting needle, while she panicked and threw the rest, including the basket, across the room, where it hit the new TV and knocked it off its shelf with a crash.

Agent Redshirt heard the noise from the kitchen, where he had been doing paperwork, and ran into the room in a panic. Closely following him was Bryce Banner with a small medkit, since she was more familiar with the consequences of sounds like that and the unique healing abilities of most of the team. When the two arrived, they saw Thor waving her hand around, spreading blood all over the room as Toni bemoaned the "leather couch AND the TV? Why? Why!", knowing that Thor would be fine. Stephanie stood in the other door, having gone to get her own knitting project upon seeing everyone at work on theirs, and Loki was attempting to get her sister to keep still long enough to see how bad her wound actually was. Claire, meanwhile, sat on the couch, ignoring the ruckus and calmly knitting as if she dared Thor's blood to hit the white scarf she was making. Nate and Lopt, meanwhile, were out on the town, having a male bonding night at a bar somewhere and thus missed the whole thing.

As soon as the needle was pulled out, Thor's Asgardian healing factor kicked in and she barely needed a band-aid, though she insisted on one anyway. After discovering the children's brand with cartoon versions of the team on them, Thor used band-aids at any chance she could get. The rest of the team, especially Toni who paid the bills, thought it was hilarious and indulged her.

It was after the main excitement was over that Nate's pet ferret, Fred, came dashing through the room, snatching Claire's yarn ball and taking off with it at top speed, yanking the half-finished scarf out of the surprised assassin's hands and eliciting a scream of rage as she took off after the furry menace.

Everyone else in the room watched all of this happen, and silence reigned supreme for about thirty seconds before they all started laughing at once, even Toni who was sketching funeral plans for the TV on the whiteboard. When Claire didn't return, it was Loki who eventually found her, crouching next to the massive waterbed in Toni's room and attempting to coax the ferret out, "So I can wring your little furry neck, yes I will, you cute little bastard" in a sickly-sweet tone of voice. Loki, Claire, and the rest of the team proved unable to get Fred out until Nate came home, looked at the scene, and gave a low whistle, at which point Fred came bounding out, scurried up his clothing, and settled around his neck, looking far smugger than any ferret had a right to be.

-XXXXX-

Claire's knitting was not the final victim of Fred the Ferret, but rather the start in a long line of heists and disappearances. Having gained a taste for white cotton from the scarf, and a penchant for escape from Nate's inability to properly lock his stupid ferret cage, Fred began a series of midnight sock heists.

The first night, it was Bryce Banner's socks that went missing, from the basket of clean laundry that she had yet to put away, but as the nights went on, the cotton larceny grew more and more ambitious, culminating in a heist on the Lokis' suite after a week of successfully stealing everyone else's. Loki was terrified of losing her clothes to a rodent, and refused to allow it, placing vermin wards, locks, and closing their socks in the top drawer of their shared dresser. And yet, as if mocking her, when she awoke the next morning, the only contents of her sock drawer were a pair of Lopt's black dress socks, right in the center of the drawer.

This incredible intelligence in a ferret was slightly suspect, until Nate admitted that Fred had been a gift from Reed Richards, who admitted to having tampered with its genetics a bit when they called him. In his defense, however, he had completely forgotten about that part when he gave Fred to Nate. Then it made a little too much sense, and ended up sparking a vicious rivalry between Loki and Fred, as everyone else looked on in bemusement and slight worry.

-XXXXX-

It was time for the first SHIELD Council review of the Avengers to take place at the Avengers tower, and everyone was a little on edge. None of the team had forgotten about the Council's attempt to turn Manhattan into a nuclear fallout zone, and the Council still didn't approve of having one Loki run free, let alone two. Add in the usual personality clashes and tension between Director Fury's agents and the team, and the tower was a minefield, everyone just waiting for something to go wrong.

Interestingly enough, the person keeping everything from going to hell so far had been Agent Redshirt. Having lived with the Avengers for far longer than anyone expected him to last, including himself, he had mellowed out and grown used to their antics, while still sticking to SHIELD protocols for the most part. He was no Coulson, but he was slowly filling the hole in the team that had been left by the lack of a decent handler and Agency liaison. Even the name Redshirt had morphed, from a declaration of short life-span to a term of endearment, and the agent in question had taken to wearing casual clothes featuring red polo shirts around the tower when he was not required to be in full uniform. Even he had no way to control what happened next, however.

The Council had finally arrived, filing into the tower's fortified meeting room, and were having an introductory meeting with Fury before bringing in the Avengers. The team was waiting in the hall, feeling like students waiting outside the office of a tyrannical school principal, when the chaos began. Blasting over the PA and through the very walls came the peppy K-Pop beats of Gangnam Style, and one look at Loki and Hawkeye told the rest of the team that they had nothing to do with it. After a hurried conversation with JARVIS, Toni turned back to the rest of the team.

"He can't turn it off, guys. Somebody hacked the speaker system." As she said this, she was overheard by an approaching agent, who ran back to Fury to request orders.

"Turn it the fuck off, that's what you should do! Are you completely incompetent?" The director barked at the unfortunate girl. "Before I start shooting the mother fucking speakers out!" But Fury's rage didn't have the power to stop the music any more than any of their other attempts. The meeting was going to shit, and Darcy had come running in looking for her iPod, convinced that SHIELD had stolen it again and blaming Fury.

It was at this moment when a red and black blur came barreling through the wall, leaving a massive hole in the shape of a body with outstretched arms and legs and followed by a calmly striding Lopt. The blur turned out to be the form of Deadpool, bruised, battered, and cursing an author for some reason. Lopt strode over the the prone and bleeding Merc with A Mouth and picked him up by the front of his spandex suit.

"Don't take people's shit. It's not nice." With this statement, he dropped Deadpool, reached into a ceiling panel above the meeting room and pulled out Darcy's iPod, handing it back to her and leaving the room after repairing the wall with a wave of his hand. Fury and the council looked on, dumbstruck, as the entire Avengers team and Loki could be seen peeking around the door to the room, then turning to watch Lopt go. As he made his way out of sight, Loki looked on in admiration, then quickly followed. Comparatively, the rest of the meeting seemed rather tame, with Deadpool bleeding on the floor by the conference table the entire time.

-XXXXX-

Sadly for the Avengers, but happily for the miscreants involved, Wade "crazier than a sack of ferrets" Wilson refused to leave the Tower after the Council meeting incident, and even worse, struck up an alliance with Fred the Larcenous Rodent. When Claire asked where the name came from, Deadpool replied, "He told me, in my dreams! Or maybe that was the author running out of ideas... already? Really, that's pathetic!", screaming the last part to the ceiling with a glare. "He also told me he wanted a uniform. Everyone else here has a uniform, even the robots! Why NOT the supper ferret burglar? WHY NOT!?" Claire decided never to ask Deadpool questions again, and slowly backed out of the room before running for the relative safety of other people, namely her huge russian friend. Deadpool, in the meantime, was carrying on a mostly one-sided conversation with his furry, caped companion.

"Now, my lovely weasely friend, let us go! On, to mischief! On, to GLORY! Meaning, let's prank Thor."

"squeak."

"Well, yes, I know you're a ferret, not a weasel. I'm sorry if I insulted you, but weasels are awesome! Like tacos. And chimichangas. Ooh, chimichangas! ...And why not Thor?"

"squeak, tail wave."

"Step on you? She would never! Thor's all heroical and stuff. All of your opinions are to be ignored from now on. Let's go, sidekick!"

"...squeak..."


	7. Chapter 7

**Wow guys, I guess Deadpool gets reviews... Good to know! As a reward for quadrupling my review count, I decided to post another chapter tonight. With a bit more Deadpool and a lot of cute, awkward Thor cuz she's so fun to write! **

**Seriously though, thore reviews totally made my day (especially since I've been sick), thanks so much!**

**I know it's short, but hey, three in one day...**

-XXXXXX-

It turns out Thor would, and did, step on the ferret. When Deadpool and Fred reached her floor of the tower, they found her attempting to turn on the shower, with civilian, and even more shockingly, nice, female clothes laid out on the bed. So engrossed was she with the puzzle presented by the shower faucets, she didn't notice the duo until Deadpool tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to jump with a yelp, landing right on the cape-covered tail of Fred the Larcenous Rodent and punching Deadpool across the room and out the window.

While this proved to be an effective way of getting Deadpool out of the tower, it also attracted the attention of the rest of the team. The first in the door were Loki and Lopt, who had been passing by. Upon seeing the half-naked Thor, Lopt quickly ducked back out, leaving her sister to take care of her. When the rest of the Avengers reached Thor's room, this is the scene they came to.

"Sister, what are you doing? And why did you break the window?"

"Well... I was attempting to use this Midgardian cleaning room, but I know not how it functions..."

"Awhuh? You've never used the shower? We've been living here over a year! Odin's beard, Thor, that's disgusting!" Loki's face was slightly terrified at this thought, that her sister could have somehow gone a year without a shower.

"Sister, I am Thor! I am not disgusting, I am a Goddess! Besides, I have to go home once a week and I bathe there..."

"But now you need the shower here? You seem no... smellier than usual. What is the occasion?" Loki had forgotten her disgust, replaced by mischievous curiosity.

"Um, well... Johnsintownandiwanttolookgoo dfordinner!" Thor rushed out, sounding uncharacteristically nervous.

"I'm sorry, repeat that? It almost sounded like the Mighty Thor has a... date!" At this point, Loki was shaking with laughter at her sister's behavior, as was most of the team, peeking around the door. Nate was not laughing, but had walked into the room, picked up his injured ferret and retreated to the hall to make sure Fred was okay.

"Yes, sister. I have a date. John Foster is back in town, and I haven't seen him in so long because of his research in Norway, and I want to be...pretty...for him. Please help me, do not just stand and laugh!" Thor's face was like that of a kicked puppy, and Loki and the girls stopped laughing and took pity on her, minus Bryce who was helping Nate bandage his poor, abused pet.

"Well, then." Toni took charge, striding into the room and over to the shower. "You need shampoo, and conditioner, first." Turning on the shower, Toni gestured to Claire, who ran to get the soaps, coming back just as Thor got in and handing them to her. Explaining their use, the group backed off to let the goddess get clean, returning to look over her choice of clothes for the evening. Loki, who had become quite the fashion aficionado, laid out a few more choices of outfit, waiting to find out where the two were going before she dressed her sister like a doll. With Thor's return, they asked her what her plans were.

"He takes me to dine, I know not where. He asked of me that I dress nicely, as for a formal feast," the scrubbed-down Thor replied. "I know not what to wear!" Before she broke down, Loki took over again, shoving a modest but beautiful red dress into her sister's arms and pushing her back into the bathroom.

"Put that on, but don't touch your hair. We'll do that and makeup when you come back out." The bewildered Thor had no choice but to do what her sister and friends said, and by the end of their work she was almost unrecognizable. Her hair shone like gold, pulled back to show her blue eyes and beautiful face, accentuated with just a tiny bit of makeup.

Matching the outfit with tall black boots, since they didn't trust Thor in heels, the team watched her go like proud parents sending their teenager to prom, and promptly retreaded to the break room to gossip and await her return, leaving Lopt watching bemusedly from the hall until Nate walked up, put his hand on his shoulder, and jerked his head towards the gym, silently asking for a spar. Glad to escape the giggling pile of girls, Lopt went with him without a second thought.

-XXXXXX-

Outside the base of the Tower, Thor stood nervously by the door, looking for John Foster, who had promised to pick her up. Feeling naked without her armor, cape and hammer, she shivered with nerves, only to feel warm leather settle around her shoulders. Turning, she saw the man she was waiting for.

"Hello, John Foster!" She exclaimed in her usual voice, before flushing and continuing in a quieter vein, "It is good to see you once more. How goes your research? Have you created a Bifrost for Midgard yet?"

Smiling up at her, John took her hand and led her to a waiting cab. " No, no Bifrost yet, but I think we are getting closer. I miss you though, our letters and phone calls have not been enough." The conversation continued in a similarly mushy vein until they pulled in front of the restaurant, which turned out to be a nice steakhouse. Thor looked excited at his choice of food, and John smiled to see her so happy,instead of how nervous she had been all evening. While he found her sudden shyness slightly adorable, it was so different from the strong warrior that he had first fallen in love with, so watching her dig enthusiastically into a massive steak was like coming home, a return to normality.

"I'm not the only one who has missed you, John Foster. Darcy has been living at the tower, and could not stop speaking about your return. You should stay there while you are in New York, Toni always has extra rooms. ...please?"

John laughed out loud at how... girly Thor was being, and replied: "I would love to stay at the tower, Thor. I've missed you so much, and it will be nice to see Darcy again, and meet the rest of the team in a less formal setting." This marked the end of the serious conversation, and the rest of their evening was spent simply enjoying each other's company before heading back to the tower.

At some point in the night (probably after her third or fourth glass of weak midgardian ale) Thor had lost her shyness and dragged John back to her suite, almost picking him up in her haste. The rest of the girls heard her booming laughter as she came in, answered by John's masculine laughter. Soon after, they began hearing other sounds, and a pale-faced Loki used her magic to block the sound from that floor of the building.

"So what, you can dish it but you can't take it?" Asked a sniggering Toni. "Not that I'm not grateful, she lives just below me, but you and Lopt have been amplifying it whey of two do the nasty!"

"Eheh... No we haven't. We've just been playing the sounds to mess you you guys after Claire wouldn't stop being perverted. We mostly just cuddle at night, and when we do do stuff we don't go all the way. She's actually having sex, and that is much different. She's my sister, by Odin!"

"Hey, don't forget Frigga! She's your sister by Odin and Frigga!" Cackled Hawkeye, receiving groans from the entire group and a slap upside the head courtesy of Nate, who had returned with Lopt once the girls got bored with giggles and gossip and the night turned into a Star Wars marathon for Stephanie's benefit.

When Toni had brought up the Disney purchase of Lucas arts, the group started to bemoan the idea of Star Wars seven, eight, and nine, when Stephanie piped up to remind them that she had not seen the first six, successfully derailing the intense debate between Toni and Claire over who should direct if they were going to be made anyway. They would never have reached a consensus anyway, since the overall favorite, Joss Whedon, was busy overseeing the movie versions of their own lives, which were apparently blockbuster material, not that anyone was particularly surprised.


	8. Chapter 8

**Woo! Hello again! Sorry for the delay, I am just finishing my first week of the new semester, so things have been a bit crazy. I'm hoping to balance out at updates about once a week, probably on Fridays but don't hold me to it...**

-XXXXX-

The next morning, the group were met at breakfast by a very satisfied Thor and a grinning, but sheepish John Foster. "Hello, my friends! How was your night!" Boomed Thor, causing a wince from John and snickers from everyone else.

"Not as good as yours, I'll wager!" Cat-called Claire. "So the dress worked, then?"

"Heh, it was actually watching her take down a 20 ounce steak and six pints of beer without blinking that did it. The dress made me wonder if she had been replaced, it's the real Thor that I'm in love with." Replied the lightly blushing John, eliciting coos and smiles from the women and a massive kiss from Thor. Loki walked over to her sister's new man, and looked him up and down.

"Well, I approve, but I'm not sure you should take him home to Fa- Odin just yet. Your friends might squish him, or eat him in the case of Volstagg," she pronounced with a lopsided grin. Everyone pretended not to notice her slip, except for Thor who beamed at her harder than necessary, but managed not to bring it up.

"Hey guys, how fair is it that the aliens from outer space are the only ones getting any play around here?" Toni chose that minute to speak up and break the mushy silence. "I mean, we're all hot, how come none of us are getting any?"

"Well, to be fair, they are gods," came Bryce's thoughtful reply. "And really, it's your own fault. Potts may be off running your business right now, but you two were steadily heading for more than friendship, last I saw."

"Peter? Yeah, no. He's like a brother, and I play for the other team anyway," came Toni's indignant reply, which was met with Claire's knowing smirk, Bryce's look of utter shock, and Thor's matching look of utter confusion.

"What meaning has sports in matters of love? I do not understand. If you love Peter Potts, what does it matter what 'team' you play for? I am certain that if John Foster and I played sports against the other, I would not stop loving him!"

"Eheh... Nose goes for who gets to explain this one!" Cried Toni, and the team raced to touch their noses, with the exception of Thor and the two Lokis, who looked at the rest like they were utterly insane. "Well, the noses have it. Loki, have fun!"

Loki still looked somewhat confused, but glared at the rest when she realised she had been tricked somehow. "Well, sister, I believe what she means is that she loves women, not men."

"'But, but how does that work?" Came Thor's innocent reply, at which Loki fled the room, closely followed by the rest as someone yelled,

"Google it!"

-XXXXX-

Over the next few days, the team grew used to the sight of Dr. Foster around the tower, and consequently the sight of Darcy, who had already been living there half the time but now hung out with the team. It was a comfortable group that met in the lounge for their almost nightly movie night, this time watching Firefly in an attempt to, as Toni and Claire put it, "educate the heathens about the glory that is Joss Whedon." As they settled in to watch the show, Agent Redshirt came running into the room, panting.

"Eeey!" Came the Fonz-like group cry, as the now beloved, or at least tolerated, Agent came in.

"Knew you'd come join us eventually," started Toni, only to be interrupted by the Agent as he grabbed the remote and changed the TV over to the news.

"Oy! We were watching that!" Yelled Claire, before quieting at what she saw. On the screen, a giant lizard was attacking the Williamsburg Bridge. As the team began to scramble for their suits and weapons (Thor grabbing Mjolnir and looking perfectly ready to go, pants or no), Bryce suddenly told them all to stop and look back. Chasing the Lizard-man-thing was a small, spandex-clad figure, somehow shooting ropes to catch the cars falling off the bridge and chasing the creature away. As they settled back into their couches, Claire and Toni started to commentate, Nate contributing comments on his form in quiet Russian with Claire translating for him. At the end, the new super was given a ten for style after they watched him give his mask to a tiny kid to help rescue him. He got bonus for the fact that he was obviously a teenager, not even out of high school, unlike the mostly high twenty to low thirty-something team and the centuries-old goddesses and god.

"Well, I approve. Think we should find out who he is so we can meet the kid?" Asked Claire, to nods of approval around the room.

"Indeed, the boy shows promise, and much bravery!" Replied Thor, waving her hammer for emphasis. As she shook the deadly weapon around, a bold of lightning jumped out and hit the highest source of electricity in the room - yet another new TV. This caused Toni to growl, throwing herself at the surprised god and smashing her into the window, where she lost her grip on Mjolnir and accidentally shattered the glass. Backing away from the enraged Toni, who by this point had visible flames in her eyes, Thor attempted to distract her crazed landlady. "So, what is this new hero's name?"

Toni wasn't fooled, but decided to let the thunder goddess live, for the time being. She also wanted to know, and turned expectantly to the Agent as Thor heaved a sigh of relief.

"Well, the press is calling him Spider Man, due to his abilities and the spider on his costume. And as for your earlier comments, the orders from SHIELD are to wait and watch for a while before we bring him into the fold. We want to see how he deals with this Lizard man before we make decisions about bringing him into the team, or what we want to do. Besides, the kid's in high school. His secret identity actually has to stay secret for a while, and bringing him to the Tower will blow it faster than Toni did hers.

"Hey! I resemble that remark!" Came Toni's faux-insulted reply. Laughing, the team settled back to the couch as Stephanie and Thor went to retrieve the already-purchased replacement TV from the side closet, carting the old one down to Toni's lab, where she was building something from scavenged parts of the deceased TVs and waffle makers, but refused to tell anyone what. New television in place, the group settled down to resume their sci-fi marathon.

-XXXXX-

Over the next few weeks, the team followed the Spider Man closely on the news, cheering him on as he faced the trials of a new super, and eventually tying Claire to a chair to keep her from assassinating "that complete and utter ass-monkey, Jameson." They weren't too fond of the police commissioner either, but understood his dislike of the boy, and supers in general, after the Hulk had thrown a Chitauri troop-carrier into the police station, then the rest of the team had used the wreckage as a corpse-pile, making it almost impossible to clean up and rebuild afterwards. Yeah... Chief Stacy had his reasons for disliking superheroes, aside from the fact that they made the regular police force look bad.

Knowing how much Stacy disliked superheroes, the team couldn't help but laugh when it became apparent that the Spider Man was dating the Chief's daughter. Granted, this wasn't common knowledge, but SHIELD's super-surveillance and JARVIS's hacking skills meant that they had more information than most people. Not that they needed JARVIS to hack to get the information of course, and SHIELD knew full-well that they were digging for it, but as Toni put it, it was simply "more fun that way."

Seeing Chief Stacy die was a sad time, and one they knew they could have prevented, had they not been ordered to stay out of the situation, but luckily the new kid managed to stop what they now knew was Dr. Curt Connors from turning the whole city into giant, insane lizards. Bryce and Toni, who knew him due to their dealings with Oscorp, were upset to find this out, for they couldn't see how such a good man and relatively ethical super-scientist could have gone super-villain, and Bryce was glad to be put on the team analyzing the lizard serum to determine its long term effects. They decided to give the kid until summer, letting him finish out the school year before he was bombarded with famous superheroes (and former villains). They did, however, arrange for him to stay at the tower in advance by offering him what he thought was one of many internships in Stark industries' biotech department under the illustrious Dr. Bryce Banner. In reality, it was only him and Gwen Stacy who received internships, since the team felt the responsibility to educate her as well, on what it meant to be a super-girlfriend.


	9. Chapter 9

**Hey everybody! Sorry for the delay in this chapter, I was supposed to get it out on Friday... Luckily for you guys, that means that a) this chapter is longer than usual, though kind of random, and b) you only have to wait two days for the next one! I promise...**

**(Also, no Deadpool this chapter, but we do get to welcome the illustrious, amazing, NOT Toby mcStupid, Spider-Man! No moon walks allowed, and the hair meets epic-ness requirements. As does the girlfriend.)**

**...hehe, oh yeah... I forgot to give credit for the new cover art to my friend Grace, who my Thor is very much based on. She decided to draw the team, Adventure Time style, so I stole it. **

-XXXXX-

As the somewhat bored Avengers waited for summer so they could play with their new toy... err, recruit, they had their monotony broken in a rather epic way.

One morning, the sky over Central Park was once more home to strange occurrences. In this case, it was not a portal that hovered in the air, but rather an imposing airship in green and grey, with the flag of Latveria on the side. Landing in the park, Dr. Victor Von Doom strode out, his cloak flapping in the breeze and followed by a legion of Doom Bots. As the citizens of New York fled in terror, Doom's own ship suddenly began to play AC/DC's Thunderstruck, and Toni Stark, as the Iron (wo)Man, landed in front of him accompanied by a clap of thunder and the goddess thereof, who landed with a flash of lightning. The rest of the team followed in the Quinjet, through the windshield of which Loki could clearly be seen face palming at her sister's antics.

"Eey! Vickie, my man, are we glad to see you! Gods, it was getting boring around here. SHIELD wouldn't let us help with the last super-villain, but the Fantabulous Foursome are out of town, meaning you, my friend, get to be stress relief!" Toni's jovial tone rang out clearly, and Doom twitched as he realized that she hadn't even bothered to put her helmet on all the way. Thor's laughter as she swung her hammer lazily just pissed him off even more, but as he advanced on the duo, he was struck in the head by an arrow... tipped with a suction cup and stuck to his forehead.

"Nice accessory, Doom-Doom!" Rang out the laughing voice of Hawkeye as she stood on the Quinjet's wing, bow in hand. This, of course, only angered the dictator further, and he ordered his Doom Bots forward. Sadly, for him at least, the bots were taken out as quickly as they could advance by the now complete Avengers team. As the last of his minions died, the Latverian dictator-cum-super villain gloomily retreated back to his ship and took off, vowing to return with more force via his formerly hijacked PA system. To his chagrin, all he got in return was thumbs-ups from the team and a request for that promise in writing from Hawkeye.

-XXXXX-

In an attempt to further alleviate the monotony, the Lokis who had been out shopping brought home the new Avengers Wii game. It was a rather unrealistic fighting game featuring the team vs the "Space Whale Invaders," a name that sent Loki into paroxysms of laughter at the idea of the Chitauri being referred to as such to their faces.

"Oh, my... The Other... I can only imagine his smug slimy face if someone referred to Thanos's glorious army as the Space Whale Invaders. I would pay to see that shit!" As Loki continued to giggle on the couch, the rest of the team put the game in the system, eager to see how they were represented in the game.

Ten minutes later, Hawkeye had joined Loki on the couch, laughing her ass off at the caricatures of her and her friends that bounced around on the screen. Everyone had chosen a character not their own, laughing at the vague and kind of manly pictures next to their names. After beginning the game itself, it became apparent that the pictures were not inaccurate to the characters. Instead, the game designers had managed to gender-swap the majority of the team, with the exception of Bryce and Claire.

The Iron Man was a somewhat genderless figure anyway, having been known by a male moniker before the revelation that Toni was in fact the operator of the suit. Thor was represented by a large, muscled male, which considering her looks from a distance and the lack of press about her was somewhat understandable, and Lopt commented that the character looked quite a bit like his brother. Claire was portrayed as a sexy assassin crossed with the new Disney princess, Merida, her curly red hair whipping in the wind as she shot arrows in improbable ways, and was available to play in team mode with the American-voiced Nate, who was probably the most accurate of the team apart from his voice actor. Bryce was similarly accurate, since the only play mode was as the Hulk, the giant green rage monster with ponytail whipping in the wind as she smashed her enemies. Captain America was technically female, but the character was larger and more obviously muscled than Stephanie, with blond hair rather than her white-streaked dark brown, the streak a result of seventy years buried in the ice.  
The best character, however, was Loki's, a tall, buxom, dark-haired super-villainess who was basically the opposite of the real Loki in every way. It was the appearance of this character that had Loki still on the couch, as they discovered her right as she had emerged from her first giggle fit.

Needless to say, the game was an instant hit. The team had been suffering from cabin fever since Doom's last attempt, and promptly picked up Wii-motes, choosing any character other than their own and battling the comically fake Chitauri on screen. The game soon devolved into a contest of whose character could defeat whose in vs. mode, a massive betting pool of twinkies and pop-tarts covering the table in the break room corner. Soon, Wiivengers tournaments had become a weekly tradition, along with the Twinkie currency exchange. In fact, they had an entirely separate supply of Twinkies for betting, that was significantly larger than the amount they kept around to eat. It was in this way that the bored team passed the time, except for the Asgardians who had love lives to keep them occupied as well.

-XXXXX-

Eventually, however, Wiivengers grew old, and it was around this time that Claire began to act up again. The Avengers began to wake up to small animals in their beds, strange colored hair, and in one memorable instance, a vengeance prank on Toni involving the thirty five pounds of birdseed that the Iron woMan had left in her car. Having painstakingly swept out her precious Audi, the Hawk had saved every seed, and Toni went down to her lab one morning to find it stuffed inside her current line of Iron Man suits. This led to an epic prank war between the two, which had almost driven their housemates insane when a distraction finally showed up.

"Ladies, you are both pretty. Now if you can cease this moronic war, the 'internship' for young Mr. Parker begins tomorrow." Bryce Banner's calm pronouncement interrupted the two, who had frozen in a statuesque pose of Toni pulling Claire's currently bright purple hair. The two separated and looked at each other with wicked grins before Claire pulled her hair down in front of her face, looking critically at the bright violet, before shrugging.

"I think I like it. Makes me more... super-hero-y!"

"It certainly makes you more purple. Now will you two behave?" replied Bryce. Receiving their eager nods, she sighed and retreated to her lab with a mutter of, "at least I tried. Not my fault if they scar him for life..."

-XXXXX-

The next morning, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy walked arm in arm into the business lobby of Stark Tower, ready to start their prestigious internships under Dr. Bryce Banner, one of Stark Inc's top scientists. The fact that she was also the Hulk and a member of the Avengers had been successfully hidden from the public eye, so the two high schoolers really had no idea what they were actually getting into. Their first indication of anything odd, or different from Gwen's internships at Oscorp, was the fact that they were met at the desk not by a bored receptionist, but by a shortish twenty-something in a Deadpool t-shirt, whose bulky glasses, blue jeans and converse hi-tops screamed: 'grad student!' As the two approached the desk, Darcy bounced up and greeted them each by name.

"Hey, Peter, Gwen! I'm Darcy Lewis, and I have been chosen as your tour guide to the wonderful world of.. uh... science. Right, Science! Now, if you two will follow me..." With that rather confusing introduction, Darcy turned and led the two right back towards the front doors. Halfway to the doors, Gwen gave a little shriek as a woman with curly purple hair dropped from the rafters and landed right next to them, joining the group as Darcy didn't bat an eyelash. "Hi Claire. Nice hair. Toni?"

"Yup." And the group continued walking, Peter now shielding Gwen slightly with his body. "Aww, kid, you don't have to do that!" laughed the now-named 'Claire.' "Hawks might eat spiders, but I ain't gonna hurt'cha!", which just confused the poor kids even more.

As the group left the building unmolested by security, the teens began to calm, and when they were led to a stretch limo, where their guides finally broke down in a fit of laughter.

"Sorry 'bout that, we were having fun with the suspense. Now, though, it is time for the great unveiling!" The purple haired Claire exclaimed dramatically, waving her hands for effect. "You see, young padawan, we know all about you and your secret identity, and while this summer will involve a lot of science (hard not to with Bryce and Toni around), what it really is is Super-Hero 101! I'm professor Claire Barton, slightly better known as Hawkeye, and we, my young friends, are headed to Avengers Tower!"

Darcy looked exasperated at Claire's display, making a mental note to find out who gave Claire that much caffeine, then let her out of sight. The group had voted for Darcy to go alone to pick up Peter and Gwen, so as not to scare them, but Claire had shot that plan to hell with steel-tipped explosive arrows. She made the hyperactive hawk move to the shotgun seat and spent the rest of the trip attempting to explain things to the kids.

-XXXXX-

Meanwhile, back at the Tower, the rest of the team was gathered, waiting for the newbie, when with a sinking feeling in her gut, Bryce looked around and asked, "Where's Claire?" To her mixed luck, her question was answered before she and the rest could panic, as the purple haired archer came waltzing through the door followed by two shell-shocked teens and a face palming Darcy Lewis. At this sight, she took control, smacking Claire and leading the kids over to the couch. "Hi, I'm Dr. Bryce Banner. I don't know what Claire and Darcy have told you yet, but welcome to Avengers tower. The one getting cried on is Toni Stark." Claire looked up from her place on Toni's shoulder and stuck her tongue out at the diminutive scientist as Toni gave a wave with her free hand, "The short brunette is Stephanie Rogers" Stephanie gave a smile and a wave, essence of apple pie and fireworks wafting out of her every movement, "and the big guy is Nate Romanoff." The russian limited himself to a nod at the newcomers, as Claire bounced over to stand by him. "I believe you've met his partner Claire Barton." The purplette gave a winning smile. "On the couch are our resident Asgardians: Thor," who gave a giant wave, catching her red cape on her arm and dropping her pop-tart, "Loki," who was bent over picking up her sister's pop tart before Thor started crying, then straightened up and waved to the teens, "and finally Lopt, who is actually another Loki from a different dimension, it's kind of a long story..." Lopt looked up at the teens and smiled, then curled his arm back around his girlfriend. "Oh, yeah, the Lokis are dating, it has ceased to be weird for us. Any questions?"

"..." Peter Parker was sitting on the couch with a confused look on his face, which was nothing to his girlfriend Gwen's. The poor blonde looked completely shellshocked, an expression that slowly morphed to amazement before she shot out of her seat and bounded over to Bryce.

"Oh my god! You wrote that paper in last month's Biology Today on the complications and consequences of advanced DNA mapping and experimentation on..." The girl babbled like Toni on caffeine and Bryce happily responded in kind, forgetting what they were doing and making their way down to the bio lab.

At this uncharacteristic display of fangirlishness from his girlfriend, Peter relaxed and laughed, looking around at the team, all of whom were now seated on the other couches to give him his space. "So, the Avengers, huh."

"Yup," replied Toni. "We've all been wanting to meet you before this, but SHIELD made us wait. First to see how you would deal with the Lizard problem, then for the school year to end. Apparently having Iron Man come get you from school wasn't considered subtle enough." At this last, she had an affronted look on her face, but whether it was at the idea that she couldn't be subtle, or the idea that she needed to, was anyone's guess.

"What's SHIELD? And how would they tell you what to do?" Asked Peter. "I mean, you're superheroes. We're superheroes, I guess. What say does anyone have over you?"

"SHIELD stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," replied Claire, now in serious agent mode. Peter did a double-take at her personality switch as the rest looked on, then continued to listen to her explanation. "SHIELD is basically this super-secret organization that takes care of things the rest of the government can't, including superheroes. Nate and I are technically SHIELD agents, though we usually act more as consultants like the rest of the team nowadays. It's technically run by this secret Council of politicians, but the only one we actually listen to is Director Fury. He's the one who collected us from all ends of the earth, galaxy actually, to fight the Loki menace. Obviously, that's not our job now, since Loki is no longer a menace-" Claire was cut off by Thor's indignant yell of:

"Loki! She stole my last Pop-Tart!"

The Hawk continued, correcting herself. "-since she's no longer a super-villain, though admittedly still a menace at times, we mostly deal with other baddies. Vickie Von Doom-Doom is the closest thing we have to a nemesis right now, or possibly Team FredPool, but I digress. SHIELD gives us oversight and legitimacy, so the government and police can't go after us like they did you for a while. We'll take care of that though. Anyway, I'm starting to feel like a villain with all this monologuing, so who wants to take over the Q&A?" By the end of her explanation, Claire had slipped back into her normal mode, somewhere between the serious Agent Barton they saw on missions and the Violet Menace of the morning.

"I've got a question," began Loki. "How much coffee did you drink this morning, if it's only now wearing off? You have the metabolism of Thor, caffeine usually doesn't do that to you."

"Did you have to make a new pot this morning?" Replied Claire. "That's cuz I had already finished the auto-brewed pot. Answer your question?" The rest of the team shuddered at the thought of Claire drinking an entire pot of coffee, black by necessity since they were out of milk, again.

"Uhuh... So this is the great Avengers? You don't seem anything like your press. Aren't you supposed to be all badass and serious and shit?"

"Yeah, see what the press and PR people tend to forget is that we aren't just awesome super-heroes, we're also people. Most of us are human people, even. We are also a group of relatively young adults living in a home together, how could you possibly expect hijinks not to ensue?" Toni was laughing as she answered the bewildered boy. "Now, Superhero 101, begin!"


	10. Chapter 10

**Hey everybody! As promised, here is this week's chapter, actually on time! Mostly fluff and crack, but then again the whole story so far has been. Spoiler alert though, there may be a plot in the near future!**

-XXXXX-

Superhero 101 turned out to be the Avengers messing with Peter while Gwen practically lived in the lab with whichever science nerd wasn't doing other things that day. Sometimes it was John and Darcy, who educated her on how it was to live on the periphery, with the super group but not one of them. At one point Toni disappeared into her lab without emerging for three days. When she finally came out, her hair was sticking straight out at odd angles and one of her eyebrows was lightly toasted. As she tottered into the break room, everyone already inside looked up with the now customary "Eeey!"

Collapsing on the couch, Toni looked over at the snickering Peter Parker. "The fuck you looking at, shrimp?"

"For one, I'm taller than you, dumbass. Also, what the hell did you do to your hair?" Came Peter's snarky reply.

"Aww, Petey... Upset that she works it better than you do?" Cut in Claire, sitting on top of the back of the couch and draping her arms around the Spider's shoulders. "Cuz if you're going to make fun of her hair, you had better look in the mirror first!"

"Oy! Stop talking about me like I'm not here. Admittedly, I am probably not all here, at least half of me is asleep, but still! It's the principle of the thing!" This outcry was made all the funnier by the fact that Toni was, in fact, half asleep, and thus was slurring her relatively intelligent words. As well as her actions following this message, which were to drop her head back on the cushions and begin to snore lightly. Peter poked her shoulder and she didn't react, telling the other denizens of the room that she was entirely and deeply asleep. Claire quickly confiscated Peter's pen before he could draw on her, and went to find Nate to help carry the sleeping genius to bed.

"What was she doing, JARVIS? Where the hell has she been?" Claire asked the AI as she walked.

"I am sorry, Miss Barton," the AI replied, but my Mistress has requested silence on that topic. I can only tell you that she has been in the lab."

"Eh, that's alright JARVIS. Toni comes first, especially to you." Spotting Nate, Claire pulled him away from his computer to the break room to carry her friend to bed.

-XXXXX-

The next morning, most of the group was in the kitchen, making and eating breakfast in a type of organized chaos. Loki was sitting in the corner nook with a waffle covered in whipped cream and strawberries, sprinkling powdered sugar on top of the whole mess and adding some to her hot cocoa while she had it. Across the table, Stephanie and Thor had similar meals, only in far greater quantities. As Peter and Gwen came in holding hands, Loki slinked over to him, noting how much taller he was with annoyance.

"Hey, handsome. Why don't you ditch the omelets for today and join me... at the waffle table?" The way the trickster said this was so loaded with innuendo in tone and body language that even though nothing technically naughty was said, the poor couple were both beet red and mortified, even as the rest of the kitchen sans the Captain laughed at them.

"Are you trying to steal my woman?" Asked Lopt as he walked into the room, nursing his own hot cocoa and looking down at the teenagers. "Because that is not acceptable, though I may be willing to share..." The intensity in his eyes and the look on his face as he said this caused the poor kids to run out of the room, looking likely to pass out from the influx of blood to their faces.  
"That was mean. And hilarious, but mostly mean." Stated Toni from over by the stove, her hair still refusing to go down after whatever had happened in her lab. "Besides, Loki, omelets are good! Just because they don't have the sugar content of Candyland doesn't mean they aren't worth eating." Loki made a face.

"I have had quite enough of savory fare. Sugar of this type and quantity is not readily available on Asgard, and I am making up for centuries of its absence. Besides, I do what I want. Don't judge me!" Lopt and Thor nodded in agreement, faces stuffed with waffles and whipped cream.

Two hours later, Agent Redshirt came in with a memo from Director Fury reminding the team that "Peter Parker may be a superhero now, but he is still underaged, and sexual harassment is unacceptable."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Cried Claire as she walked into the room, having been on a mission for SHIELD and only just gotten back to the tower. "We can't mess with Petey anymore? Whyyy?"

"Because he and Gwen won't come out of her room. The Lokis were messing with them at breakfast and we can't tell if it scared them or inspired them. Either way, no more sexual harassment."

"Heh, if it's what I heard on my way up here, I'd go for inspired," laughed Claire, "but seriously, what are we supposed to do now? Get a cat?"

"Okay with me," came Toni's reply. "Couldn't be worse than the ferret." (A short while later, she would be eating her words, but we're not there yet so I'll leave it at that.)

-XXXXX-

The next day, when Nate had returned from giving his and Claire's mission report to Director Fury and confirmed that Fred could handle a cat in the tower, the group went down to the shelter to pick a cat.

"My idea, my cat. We will all get to play with it, but I get to name it, okay?" Said Claire as they made their way in, to accepting nods from the rest of the group.

"Yeah, okay." Replied Toni for the rest of them. "Also, I made a robotic litter box for it, so you're gonna have to sacrifice one of your closets or something. Your cat, your scat."

Claire's reply was cut off by the desk worker at the shelter's bored greeting. "Can I help you? I remind you that many dorms and apartments do not accept pets, so please do not adopt an animal unless you are sure you can care for it. Now, what are you- Oh!" She finally looked up and realized exactly who was standing in her lobby. "Oh, my. You're the Avengers! And who is this?" She asked, gesturing to Peter, Gwen, Loki and Lopt. The group ignored her question, not feeling like dealing with her minor panic or ruining Peter's secret any more than it already was.

"We're here for a cat," began Claire. "Can you take us back there? It will be living in my part of the tower, and we definitely have landlord approval," she finished, waving in Toni's direction. The latter had taken off her jacket, Arc reactor shining through her shirt for all to see. Thor had wandered over to the wall, looking at the puppies as Loki dragged her away by the collar.

"One new pet at a time, Thor. I promise cats are just as fun, and puppies are breakable. So are cats, but cats don't break themselves as easily, and we need an animal with self-preservation if it's going to be living near you." Loki's dry commentary as she dragged her sister over to the group startled a laugh out of the awed shelter worker.

"Well, cats are this way. Are you interested in a kitten or an adult?"

-XXXXX-

Choosing a cat ended up taking a long time, as Thor was taught to handle them properly and the rest played with all the cats and kittens. In the end, they chose one of the older kittens, who had taken a shine to everyone in the group, but Claire in particular. He was an orange tabby, larger than the other kittens his age, making his survival more likely, and he was extremely lively, and playful. Everyone was in love with him, and Toni bought half the store making sure he had enough toys, and a cat bed for everyone's floor but Nate's, plus the break room.

"What's his name?" The lady asked Claire, filling in the paperwork for adoption.

"Err... I dunno. I usually name my pets after I've known them for a while, I just met this little guy!" Replied Claire, desperately racking her brain for ideas.

"It's okay. We can give him a nickname later, like a superhero name!" Cut in Toni. "Don't worry about his real name matching, we'll figure it out!"

Watching the cat hungrily attack the treats they gave him in his carrier, Thor came up with an idea. "What about Volstagg? He is a lovely orange color, and they tell us he will grow quite large. He certainly seems to like his food!"

This made Claire laugh, watching the hungry kitten go. "Yeah, okay. Volstagg. That's V-O-L-S-T-A-G-G," she told the clerk, laughing as the kitten looked up at her. "Well, he seems to like it, he looked up at his name!"

-XXXXX-

Back on Asgard, the Warriors Three and Sif were visiting Heimdahl to see how Thor was doing. As the Avengers on Midgard named the kitten after their largest friend, Heimdahl laughed and narrated the scene to the gods.

"She named me after a pet?" Boomed Volstagg indignantly. "I am no common pet!"

"No, friend Volstagg, they named the pet after you, because of his beautiful orange fur and bountiful appetite. He will be much-loved, 'tis no insult!" Replied the laughing Sif, her golden hair sparkling in the breeze off the Bifrost.

"Well, at least Thor is well, and Loki seems to have given up her poisonous dreams. Though I admit, the idea of two of them does not sit well with me!" Declared Fandral.

"Well, the new Loki has been good for her, they are both better people for the relationship. And speaking of having two of them, I sense a traveller coming through the dimensions. Prepare yourselves!" Heimdahl settled into a battle stance as she spoke, and the warriors with her soon followed suit. Falling from the sky, a large red and silver blur came crashing into the Bifrost, landing in a burst of thunder and a crackle of lightning. As the smoke and ozone cleared, the assembled gods saw a large blonde man, holding a slightly different version of Mjolnir and dressed in a male version of Thor's armor.

"Greetings! I seek my brother, Loki, and have journeyed long to track him this far. May I speak to the All-father?" The stranger boomed, holding himself regally and looking completely at ease among the group.

"Who are you?" Demanded Sif, "And why should we follow your requests? We have no knowledge of you, and Loki is a woman, sister of the goddess Thor."

"You dare call me a woman? I know myself, and I know my brother! I may have dressed as a woman one time to get my hammer back, but I am still a man! I am Thor, God of Thunder and heir to the All-father Odin!" The blonde man, who identified himself as Thor, angrily shouted, pacing back and forth and swinging his hammer angrily. Sif held back a chuckle at the man's continued angry muttering. "Once, by Odin! Can I never live it down?"

"He speaks truth," stated Heimdahl, interrupting the amusing display. "His passage has created a space between universes, and I can see through it, though it is closing. He is not our Thor, but he is Thor. Let us see what the All-father decides." And with that, the Warriors Three escorted the strange not-Thor to the All-father's palace, Heimdahl waiting as always in her post, watching and seeing all.

-XXXXX-

Back on Midgard, the team was taking Mini-Volstagg home, with a stop for Taco Bell on the way, when both Lokis felt a foreboding chill go down their spines like ice water. Looking at the other, they exchanged nervous glances, but when nothing happened immediately, decided to ignore it for the time being.  
Once the kitten was safely home, Claire directed Toni to an empty closet in her suite, far from the bedroom, where she could install the litter box. The result was an incredibly high-tech, slightly intelligent machine that looked like it might scare the cat, or attempt to eat him. In response to these comments, Toni had it painted white, which Claire decided made it look less like a Cylon and more like a litter box.

Upon their return to the break room, depositing cat beds by people's doors on the way, Toni and Claire walked in on a scene of utter chaos. The Lokis were standing in the corner, holding hands with looks of supreme amusement upon their faces. Bryce was sitting on the couch, calmly ignoring the noise around her and continuing her conversation with Gwen. Thor and Nate were standing by a patch of open space in front of the TV, watching Fred and Volstagg meet for the first time.

Watching the cat and ferret interact, the first thought that went through Claire's mind was that it looked like a mating dance. This led to thoughts of fat orange ferrets, which in turn led to her breaking down in laughter on Toni's shoulder. To be fair, Toni was also nearly crying in laughter, simply due to the actual scene going on in her living room: Volstagg and Fred were slowly circling each other, Volstagg calmly and warily, and Fred with an odd sort of jumping movement that Nate referred to as the voyna tantsa, or war dance. Fred would jump forward and sniff Volstagg, who would jump back in turn, only for the scene to be repeated in reverse. Shrugging, the two walked over to the table and got out a couple of tacos for lunch.

As soon as Claire's first taco wrapper had been opened, Volstagg stopped circling the ferret. His nose and ears perked, and he high-tailed it across the room at blurring speeds, jumping on the table and snatching a taco. He dragged it under the couch, and Claire, who was fairly frozen in shock, heard light crunching sounds for the next few minutes before the wrapper was dragged back out by the smug little cat and left at her feet, completely licked clean. For a moment there was silence, then Fred, who seemed to have sensed a larcenous kinship, trotted up and licked Volstagg's ear. Then the entire room burst into laughter.

"Very well," declared Claire, picking up a plastic knife and her cat. "I dub thee, Taco!" Tapping the shoulders of the cat, then settling him in her lap and petting him, she got out another taco for herself as if nothing had happened, blatantly ignoring all of the pet's attempts to either get her food again or escape.

-XXXXX-

**Well, that's all for now, folks! I'll be back in a week with another chapter. As a thank you for the reviews and such and a bribe for more, I'll tell you all that Deadpool's coming back next week! After next week, things might start getting slower (meaning shorter chapters), cuz I'm playing with pairings and the idea of bringing in an actual plot. Reviews inspire me though, so keep 'em coming!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Sorry! This should have been up yesterday... Well, enjoy!**

-XXXXX-

The rest of the summer was mostly spent playing with Taco, who Thor still called Volstagg. The rest of them had embraced the shorter name. Thanks to the toys that Toni bought, the cat could be found all around the tower, having found the vents that Claire often left open and learned to use them to get from floor to floor. They did have to cat-proof the kitchen, since the voracious little beast went after anything he could find, especially meat, and was in danger of getting fat. Luckily, he ran around as much as he ate, striking an unholy alliance with Fred the ferret and running races all around the tower.

The inhabitants quickly learned to watch where they stepped in order to avoid the small furry blurs, but having another pet around the house successfully staved off the boredom that was common in between super villain attacks. And occasionally staved off super villain attacks, as they discovered the next time Doom tried to invade. The mad dictator had taken one step inside the tower, somehow getting past security, when he tripped over the cat and began to sneeze violently, cursing the Avengers as he fled his deadly allergies and went back to his personal doctors in Latveria.

This incident cemented Volstagg/Taco's place in the Avengers, and sparked a great many jokes about cats being the doom of Doom, leading to the team sending a kitten with a note to Reed and Sue Richards for their first wedding anniversary. Secretly though, most of the team was sad that they hadn't had a chance to fight him themselves, since it had been a while, again, since they had had a super villain fight and teaching Spiderman the best ways to strangle a guy without killing him eventually got old.

Luckily, by the time Spiderman didn't have much left to learn, it was time for school to start back up again. Bryce was disappointed to lose Gwen, but hired her on as an after-school assistant, an offer Gwen happily accepted since she had become fast friends with the tiny scientist throughout the summer. They had even begun studying the Hulk with Toni's massive labs and advanced tech, and while Gwen never went in the "green room" that was built to withstand hulk-outs, she didn't judge or become afraid of Bryce at other times, something that meant a lot to her and the rest of the team.

Finally, the day came for Peter to move back in with his aunt, and Gwen with her mother and brothers. "If you ever need anything, kid, we've got your back." Stated Toni gruffly, patting him on the back and acting like a father sending his kid to college. "Don't be afraid to call." Laughing, Peter agreed, and promised to come hang out when he could.

"I might just have friends this year, though, so it might not be every day!" The former geek said hopefully. While he was still undeniably a nerd, the girls had transformed him over the summer into something that Loki called 'geek chique' and Gwen called incredibly hot. Not much had changed, but his clothes fit better and he filled them out with his new muscles. He had embraced his dad's glasses, and his hair was still a mess, but looked like it was supposed to be that way, instead of looking like he had just rolled out of bed. As he folded himself into Gwen's tiny car, Peter gave one last wave and and yelled, "Thank you!" out the window as they drove away.

"Soo... what now?" Claire voiced the question on everyone's mind.

-XXXXX-

"Did someone say... Writer's Block?" Yelled Deadpool as he crashed through the window of the eighty-sixth floor, landing on the break room couch, and the Thor sitting on said couch, in a shower of glass. As Loki and the cat peeked out the broken window, attempting to figure out where the insane mercenary had come from, Thor yelled and threw him off of her lap, knocking the TV off of its stand once again.

"Oh, fuck no. Not again! I will not have Deadpool haunting the halls of my gorgeous, multi-billion dollar landmark again! And you broke the TV again? AAaaahhhh!" Toni broke down in a fit of anguished rage. Deadpool bled on the floor for about thirty seconds, then jumped up, a huge grin evident through the black and red face mask.

"Oh, Iron Man. You know you love me! Oh, wait. According to the author you hate me. Jeez, don't I get any love? That's no fair!" As usual, Deadpool ended up rambling at the ceiling instead of staying focussed on the conversation at hand. "Oh, you damned narration! You know who I'm talking to, and it ain't the readership, cuz you don't have one. That's right, I went there!" Toni attempted to herd Deadpool towards her shattered window, presumably to push him out, but the author conveniently forgot that Deadpool could read the narration and her plans were foiled. Instead, Deadpool wandered over to VolsTaco, picked up the cat and began talking to it instead. "So, you're Fred's new partner in crime? I get it, I haven't been around lately. It's good that he *hic* moved *sob* on... I do so miss our times together though, can I join you sometimes for old times' sake?"

The insane mercenary was now making puppy eyes at the cat, and the snarky manner of his banter made Toni breathe a sigh of relief that he hadn't yet met Spiderman. The two would get along like a house on fire, meaning both very well and/or with great amounts of destruction involved. Knowing her life, the destruction would involve her property, too...

-XXXXX-

The next day, Toni's predictions were proved unfortunately correct, as she walked into the gym to find Deadpool and her two furry residents dancing around the burning wreckage of the boxing ring. The cat and mutant mercenary had somehow figured out how to imitate a ferret war dance, and all three were wearing capes. Her screams of rage and the crashing sounds as she attempted to murder Deadpool drew the rest of the team, plus the visiting Spiderman down to the gym, where Claire promptly instructed JARVIS to put on the Benny Hill theme song.

Toni was chasing a purple-caped Deadpool around the gym in circles, ducking under bars, jumping over ground-level obstacles, and avoiding the debris left in the wake of the Merc with a Mouth. As the duo passed by, Claire calmly stuck her arm out, clotheslining Deadpool in a dramatic display as he somehow managed to fall in slow-motion. Catching Toni before she suffered a similar fate, the archer-assassin picked up Deadpool by the cape-knot at the front of his neck, which was revealed to be one of her expensive silk sheets as she felt it. Ignoring the cost due to rage, she ripped it bodily off of his neck with an admonishment of, "My color, My sheets, My cat! You stupid bastard, prepare to be shot!" And she pupped a bow out of nowhere and began firing arrows after the fleeing maniac. As soon as one hit, they sunk in, and as Deadpool tried to pull them out, it was revealed that she used the barbed tips. "What?" She shrugged at the others' looks. "It's not like it won't heal anyway, the guy can grow his frikkin head back, for Fury's sake!"

As she resumed her attack on the mercenary, Claire was derailed by the sight of her cat Volstagg, wearing a bright green cape attached to his collar and standing in between her and her target. "Mrow."

"Oh, you traitor!" Cried/cooed the Hawk as the cat gave her a look of pure, adorable innocence. "Who let the cat watch Shrek?!"

Laughing, Loki replied. "It was me. I made him smarter too, so he could keep up with the genetically enhanced ferret. It didn't seem fair, otherwise, and I like cats. Lopt helped, so don't heap all of the blame on me!" Of course, Claire was no longer listening, but was instead cuddling her adorable cat, gently removing the cape and carrying him like a baby from the gym.

"Aww, sweetie... I'll wash all of that soot out of your pretty coat, don't worry about it. Mama's here!" And the Assassin, murderer of hundreds in the name of freedom and arguably most violent of the Avengers on a day-to-day basis, wandered off cooing like an idiot to a small fuzzy mammal.

"Umm... You didn't happen to give him mind control abilities while you were at it, did you? Because that... was not normal." Toni was staring at the door by which Claire had left with a thoroughly disturbed expression on her face, hoping that she had been dreaming the last five minutes, or half hour for that matter, of her existence.

"No, I didn't give the cat mind control abilities. That's just weird." Replied Loki, staring in the same direction with an equally odd expression on her face. She looked up at her boyfriend, and promptly slapped him on the arm, for Lopt's smug expression was all she needed to confirm his guilt.

"What? T'was funny, was it not?" Was his only reply.

At that moment, Deadpool recovered from Claire's arrows. He got up and tottered over to the team, walking up to the most charitable of the super-heroes. "Heey, Doctor Banner... Could you help me with these? They're barbed, dont'cha know!" A quick jerk of his head, and he continued in a different voice, "That's what she said, in your pants!" Before the maniac could continue his bi-polar conversation, Bryce laid her hand on his shoulder.

"Of course. Let's see, one in the kneecap (she gave a sharp jerk), another in your eye socket (a small grunt accompanied the yank this time), and one straight through the heart. Yep, Claire's aim is as good as always. There you go!" She looked down at the writhing Deadpool, whose brains had been scrambled when she pulled the barbed arrow out of his eye socket, and who had passed out when she ripped open his half-healed heart. "Eh, he'll be fine in a minute. Annoying bugger always tries to grope me anyway."

Peter Parker, who had been at the back of the group until now, made his way towards the prone pseudo-villain. "Who's this? Shouldn't we be giving him medical attention, or do we simply not give a damn?" The kid looked confused, but curious, until his questions were answered by none other than the supposed invalid himself.

"Hey, kid! I'm Deadpool! The Awesome, the only Merc with a mOuth! He's super-cool, powerful, and crazier than a sack of ferrets! He also has a wacked-out healing factor, and the ability to see beyond the fourth wall! The Author is eating candy right now, I want some!" As the insane man rambled on, Spiderman's face morphed from concern to understanding, to annoyance, until he shot the offending man in the mouth with webbing and turned to the others.

"Oh, I get it now. He's just a dumb ass who can't shut up to save his life. In fact, he may be two or three dumb asses, judging from the conversation. Am I right that the only reason nobody's killed the man to shut him up is because he won't die?

"Yup."

"Just about."

"Spot on, there..."

"This small man annoys me. He invaded my personal chambers when I was without adequate armor. I threw him out a window, but he appears to be immortal..." A disgruntled Thor finished the chorus of answers to the spider's question.

"Umm... Guys, I'm gonna go check on Claire." Cut in Toni, "and if that stupid cat's mind control is strong enough to screw with her, I'm kicking you out." Her last comment was directed at Lopt, who almost had the grace to look sheepish, but who couldn't quite get his face to form the expression. Instead he just looked kind of smug. Toni gave him a dirty look and hurried out of the room, and as soon as she was gone, he made a curt gesture with his hand and muttered a few words, earning a grin from his girlfriend and dirty glares from most of the others. Meanwhile, Deadpool and Fred were once again dancing around the now-smoldering ashes of the boxing ring.

-XXXXX-

Toni walked into Claire's room to find her sitting on her butt, blinking as if waking up from sleep. "I'm gonna kill that damned god," she muttered, seeing the state of her best friend. "You okay sweetie?"  
"Ummm... I think so. Last I remember, I was shooting that moron Deadpool in the ass, among other places. Then I blacked out, and woke up in here, attempting to perfume the cat. So... What happened here? Were there hallucinogens involved? Do I have another excuse to attempt the murder of Deadpool?"

"Well, for one, it wouldn't be murder. It would be a public service. Secondly, it was magic, not hallucinogens. Blame Lopt, I know I do. Apparently, Loki decided to make VolsTaco smarter to keep up with that genetically mutated ferret of Nate's, and Lopt was feeling naughty and added in mind-control powers. Why he wanted to be perfumed, though... Do you think he might be gay?" At this, the cat glared and hissed at Toni, who just looked impressed that he'd understood her at all.

"Well, he wouldn't be the only one if he was," replied Claire, looking sidelong at her friend.

"True. I just don't like the look of rainbows, or more people might know about me. How'd you guess?" At Toni's comment and question, Claire looked startled.

"Heh, I wasn't talking about you, but that's nice to know." Attempting to regain her composure (and excitement), Claire cleared her throat and moved to the closet, pulling out a sheet to replace the one Deadpool stole and ruined. Then she locked the cat in the litter box room with food and water on a shelf. "You, you little scamp, are in time-out. I may stick Lopt in with you for that stunt, giving you mind control powers. You obviously aren't smart enough to use them wisely." The cat looked ashamed, confirming to Claire that she had not just made a complete idiot of herself by talking to a cat that couldn't understand her. "Well, Toni, shall we go back down and assess the damage?"

"We shall." With that the two walked back to the gym, and if they were walking a bit closer than they would have before, neither of them mentioned it.

-XXXXX-

When the two returned, Toni gratefully saw that Deadpool was absent for the time being, not minding the man-shaped hole that indicated his exit route through the wall next to the window, nor the smug look on Thor's face. The boxing ring in the middle of the gym had burned itself out, and JARVIS had released the cleaning robots, who were busy at work vacuuming, sweeping, and generally disappearing the ashes. The rest of the team, plus Fred, were sitting in the corner of the room , fascinatedly watching the robots at work.

"Why do the small metal creatures live in the walls? Do small metal creatures live in my walls? I am not comfortable with this!" Well, most of the team was fascinated. Thor was standing on a chair, glaring at the machines as if they had attempted to eat her cape. which, considering the state of the bottom edge of said cape, wasn't that unlikely. Toni laughed at the sight, laying her head on Claire's shoulder as she did so. The assassin gave a surprised smile to the top of her head, something which the other girls in the room noticed. Loki gave Bryce and Stephanie a look, signaling a meeting in her and Lopt's bedroom, then gave up at the confused look on the Captain's face and walked over to whisper in her ear. Seeing this, Lopt gave Nate a look, and the two held a quiet russian conversation in the corner as they planned an outing for later that night.

Talking, the team left in groups, until only Thor was left in the gym, still stuck on a chair in the corner. "Friends? Sister? Friend Toni, please turn off your metal beasts! I wish to leave this room!" Her cries fell on deaf ears until JARVIS himself took pity on her and froze the janitorial staff.

"Lady Thor, you may leave now. The janitorial robots will not attack you, though I do suggest you wash your clothing occasionally, especially your cape."

"What is wrong with my cape? My cape is beautiful. It was made by Frigga herself on a loom of Asgard, and shields me from harm. It is also a lovely red!" As Thor worked herself into an indignant frenzy, JARVIS could almost be heard sighing in the background.

"Yes, your cape is mostly red, but you may have noticed that it is too long without your combat boots. When you run around barefoot or in normal shoes, it drags, and the lower hem is so dirty it could support life. The cleaners went after it because it needs to be cleaned, and such a high concentration of dirt is impossible for their programming to ignore. Now, if you will please make your way out of the gym so that they may finish their work? I can arrange for your cape to be cleaned while you sleep, if you wish." After Thor finally left the gym, tentatively stepping down to the floor before dashing for the exit, JARVIS gave a mechanical sigh. "At least she didn't smash them with her hammer, like she did the espresso machine..." His dry comment fell on deaf ears, only the basic cleaning bots around to hear him.


	12. Valentine's Day Omake

**Happy Valentines Day! In honor of the occasion, I'm putting up a short omake for you guys. Enjoy! By the way, this takes place months in the future from where the story is now, so there are some spoilers in there...**

**I'll still update as usual tomorrow.**

-XXXXX-

Omake: - aThorable Valentine's...

-XXXXX-

"Friend Banner, why is the city turning red and pink? Has Claire decided to prank New York now?" At Thor's question, Bryce almost spit out her morning tea, managing to hold her giggles in long enough to answer the bemused Asgardian.

"Hehe, no Thor. I think even Claire would be hard-pressed to prank the entire city, and since the break-up, she's not entirely in the mood, to tell the truth. No, Valentine's Day is coming up. It's a day for lovers and sweethearts, and it's celebrated with pink and red and giving gifts to those you love." Bryce's face had darkened as she said this, knowing that she had no Valentine this year, but as always, Thor's skill for misunderstanding came through on the side of comedy to cheer her up.

"Gifts for the ones you love? So it's like Christmas! Oh, no, I have not procured gifts for each of you yet! I'm running out of time!" The massive goddess began to panic, as Bryce shook her head with a smile.

"Oh Thor, I love you too sweetie, but Valentine's Day is for lovers, like John. He's the one you should get a gift for, the rest of us are optional."

With this, her boisterous friend breathed a sigh of relief. "I see! It is a lover's feast! This I understand. What are the customary gifts here on Midgard?"

Bryce thought about it. "Well, flowers and chocolates are traditional, and sometimes people give bears as well. Jewelry is mostly from men to women, so I wouldn't do that..." The end of her musings was heard only by herself, however, as Thor hurried off, muttering to herself:

"Flowers, chocolate, bear. Why a bear? Perhaps so the male can prove himself in a test of strength? I do not know how John will fare against a bear... I will get him a small bear! Yes, perfect!"

Hearing her friend's thoughts, Bryce thought she may have made a mistake somewhere in her explanation, but soon forgot about it as Gwen came in for work, gushing about the amazing sweetness of one Peter Parker.

-XXXXX-

On Valentine's Day morning, Avenger's tower was woken by a small but angry roar, coupled by a (very manly) scream from Thor and John Foster's suite. As the team rushed in half-dressed, they stopped stunned at the door to the couple's room, the contents of which looked like the start of a bad joke:

John was standing on top of the bed, staring wide-eyed at the struggling bear-cub in his lover's arms as Thor looked back at him, a hurt and confused expression on her face. "Bear! Honey, Thor, why is there a bear in our rooms?!" The panicked scientist nearly squealed.

"I was told that such a gift is customary... Do you not like him? I did make sure to get a very small bear for you," the confused goddess replied. And it was true. As John looked closer, he could see that the baby panda was very small, and was beginning to fall asleep in Thor's arms, chewing gently on her hair. As the scene sunk in for the rest of the onlookers, Claire sunk to the ground, shaking with peals of laughter.

"Oh, sweetie, you just made my month... Thank your girlfriend John, she got you a very cute bear!" Still shaking with occasional giggles, the red headed archer went back to bed, followed by the rest of the team after Loki paused to make a comfortably sized cage for the tiny, confused animal.

This was _not_ a problem to be dealt with at 6am...

-XXXXX-

**Happy Valentine's guys! If you have someone special today, I would advise not getting them a live panda cub, and if you don't, then I hope this cheered you up a bit!**

**-Adele365**


	13. Chapter 12

**Here you are, chapter... 12 I guess. This is mostly fluff, but leads into some major plot points later.**

-XXXXX-

It was finally time for Frigga's visit to the Tower to see her daughters. She had missed the girls, and while Thor came home regularly, Loki did not for obvious reasons. While her youngest daughter (blood meant far less to Frigga than centuries of child-raising, and Loki was definitely her daughter) was no longer banned from the God-infested realm of Asgard, she also wasn't the most welcome there. Her propensity for tricks and mischief, which Frigga knew full well was a direct result of centuries of being ignored, criticized or ridiculed by the Aesir, had not left her the most popular being in court, and her breakdown upon learning the truth of her heritage had left her hated more than usual. Indeed, it seemed like the only ones who truly missed the Goddess of Mischief were Frigga and Heimdall, as well as Loki's children who hadn't seen her in much longer.

No one knew, but Frigga liked to visit her grandchildren at times, without the knowledge of Odin of course. Hel and Fenrir were the ones she visited the most, Hel because of good conversation and Fenrir due mainly to guilt. As Loki had been pregnant with her youngest child, Frigga had had a nightmare about Odin being killed by a wolf. Frigga's dreams were known to be prophetic, and when Loki's child had been a wolf cub, Odin had the poor thing banished as an infant. Luckily, she had been able to talk her husband out of torturing the poor thing, and she quickly followed her grandchild's exile, making him a home where he could be warm and sending her most trusted servant with food and gifts when she could not come herself.

In any case, she was not visiting her grandchildren this time, but rather her daughters. Also apparently a sort-of son, or possibly son-in-law. Heimdall had not been extremely clear on that point, but Frigga was looking forward to finding out for sure. She suspected that it might have something to do with the strange blonde man she had seen around the palace but had not met, for Heimdall had the same look in her eyes when Frigga asked her old friend about the stranger, but Odin had refused to let him see her and Heimdall would not explain anything about him.

She had plans to meet her daughters and their team- and house-mates on the roof of their castle, or tower, or what ever the Midgardians call it. Heimdall had aimed the Bifrost at their rooftop landing pad (helicopter pad, for those of us in the know), and the Asgardian Queen calmly stepped into the tunnel of whirling lights.

"MOTHER!" Frigga immediately knew herself to be in the right place, arriving and straightening from her landing crouch to the booming voice of her eldest child. "Welcome to the House of Stark, home of the team Avengers!" Thor continued in a quieter voice after receiving identical smacks from her sister and...

"Loki, I do love your illusions, but why are there two of you? You have not made yourself male in some time." Frigga looked confusedly at the two Lokis as the rest of the team laughed.

"Ah, Mother," the female Loki stepped forward and began to explain, "This is my male counterpart from another dimension. He fell through the universes from the Bifrost as I did, only he landed here instead of in the home of Thanos. We call him Lopt to keep the mortals from getting confused." Frigga looked over at Lopt, who was staring at her with a home sick look on his handsome features. At this look, so much like that of her child and grandchildren when they thought she couldn't see, Frigga's heart melted, and she embraced the much taller god.

"Then you are my son, as Loki is my daughter. I do hope you are trying to go home though, because I am sure your own mother misses you sorely. In the mean time, I will have to suffice. Now, children, introduce me to your friends!"

As the touching scene between Loki, Lopt and Frigga had taken place, the rest of the Avengers stood off to the side, shuffling awkwardly. Toni was struck with the annoying thought that she felt she was intruding in her own home, and was therefore very relieved when Frigga's attention was turned to her and the rest of the mortals on the team. The ancient Goddess looked more like a sister to Thor and Loki than a mother, the only true indications of age being light laugh lines and a streak of silver in her hair. As she turned to face them, however, the team saw the unfathomable wisdom in her eyes, each of them feeling an overwhelming urge to kneel before Frigga smiled warmly down at them.

"I am Toni Stark, milady. Welcome to my home, you are welcome to stay as long as you like. These are your daughters' friends and teammates." As she introduced the group, they all moved down to the break room, where JARVIS had food and tea prepared for the visiting goddess.

Frigga's visit was short, and she stayed in the tower for the most part, spending time with one or both of her daughters and getting to know Lopt and the very nervous John Foster. Because of this, there was a mass panic when she suddenly went missing. Loki and Thor were beside themselves, and the Avengers had been searching the globe for the rogue goddess, afraid that she had been kidnapped or gotten lost somewhere. At the end of her second day of absence, Frigga simply appeared back in the break room with a shawl around her shoulders and a smile upon her face, calmly sitting down in between a shocked Loki and a sobbing Thor.

"Now, now, dear. Whatever is the matter?" Frigga asked this in a soothing voice, and promptly received a light glare from Loki and a sobbing lap-full of Thor. She looked to the younger sister to explain, since Thor was fairly incoherent and appeared to be feeling her mother for wounds as Loki spoke a few words into a cell phone sitting on the table.

"Mother, you disappeared. We were afraid you were kidnapped or some such, we have many enemies here who would not balk at such an act!" Loki's true worry came out as her voice cracked and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. Lopt came running into the room, and practically melted into the nearest couch without taking his eyes off of the closest thing he had to his mother in this universe.

"Why, dear! Don't be silly. I swear people always forget that I was the one who raised you two. I am as old as the All-Father, and I do know how to take care of myself. I was simply visiting Jormundgandr, I haven't seen my grandson in a while because of the commute. It is hard to get away for this long without Odin noticing, not like when I visit Fenrir and Hel. Sleipnir, of course, lives in the palace, so he's the easiest of all, though it breaks my heart to see your father ride him like a common steed..." Frigga trailed off seeing the looks of shock on the faces of Loki and Lopt.

"You... you visit my children, Mother?" Loki sounded amazed and confused.

"Well of course dear. It's not like Thor has given me any grandchildren, and since I couldn't talk my husband out of exiling them it is the least I can do. Especially poor Fenrir, such a sweet boy. Did you think I hated them as much as your father does?" Loki's only answer was a choked sob as she hugged her mother in gratitude, as Lopt gained a far-off look, obviously thinking about his own children. "Oh, Lopt that reminds me. Is your Thor a man as well? There is a strange blonde man in the palace that no one will let me meet, but now that I think of his he has the look of my eldest, if she had been male..." Lopt turned white and looked at Loki, who walked over to hold him for comfort.

"Yes... Thor is my brother, though I had thought he hated me. I tried to destroy the Jotuns, and killed my true father before I left. Odin does, I know."

"Oh, Lopt darling! I know that your brother cannot hate you. He has had a worried look when I saw him from afar, but I think Odin is not allowing him to come down and find you. I will arrange it when I get back. And your Odin does not hate you, not if he is anything like my husband. He led the mourning rites himself when our daughter fell from the Bifrost, and you have been missing for far longer than she ever was. I also know that any Odin would not send Thor after you without a way back, so you should be able to visit your home and family. And you had best do so, or I will hear of it! You cannot let your poor mother worry like this!"

Lopt looked ashamed as Frigga berated him, and replied that "I suppose I do miss my brother and family, even if they do hate me. I will not go unless I can come back, however. I have finally found happiness here." He looked down at Loki, and Frigga, who had found out and approved of their strange love, smiled.

"I would not expect anything else, love."

After a few more days at the Tower, Frigga said her goodbyes and returned to Asgard, disappearing in a column of shimmering light as the Bifrost took her away.

-XXXXX-

In terms of super villainy, Frigga's visit was suspiciously quiet, and as soon as she left, the team began to look around in anticipation. Of course, what they didn't know is that Loki had gone around to their main antagonists and her sometime drinking buddies before her mother had come.

She had proceeded to scare them witless with a reminder of her power, appearing in all of their bedrooms and offices at once (wherever they happened to be at the exact stroke of midnight), and threatening their lives, pride, and in many cases testicles should they cause problems during Frigga's visit. Needless to say, they avoided the mentioned dates, though one villain in particular spent the time sullenly planning his revenge.

...Loki and the Avengers had caused Victor Von Doom much humiliation and pain, and Doom did not accept humiliation lying down. It was time for the Avengers to face the wrath of Doom, and they would not be laughing it off this time! Doom swore it!...


	14. Chapter 13

**Hi. I know it's nowhere near Friday yet, but I've been sick, and I'm bored, and I want to get all of my older stuff posted so I can get to the new. All of these things have combined to give you an early chapter, so I doubt anyone's complaining. Unless you hate my story, in which case don't read it. Yeah...**

-XXXXX-

"Eeey! Vickie! We missed you, Doom-Doom! Look guys, he brought Doom-bunnies for us to play with!" At the purple archer's jubilant outburst, Doom's jaw could be heard creaking ominously behind his mask. As the dictator ground his teeth and gestured his new and improved Doom-bot army to advance, taking many screaming New Yorkers hostage, the laughing archer's countenance changed to a mask of war, sharp and harsh competence replacing the clown-like grin.

"Avengers, go! You know what to do!" Shouted the Captain, gesturing to the hostages with her shield. The crown of civilians flickered, then changed to reveal an army of Lokis and Lopts, the real captives safely transported across the city to be met by Dr. Banner and the SHIELD response team, who would make sure everyone was alright before they were sent home. As soon as the hostages disappeared, the Iron Man suit came swooping down, signaling the start of the true battle as the Avengers began firing on the now-isolated Doom-bots. As his minions and creations fell to the might of the superhero team, Doom laughed and retrieved the remote from the sleeve of his robes. Pressing a button, he watched most of his destroyed Doom-bots assemble themselves, smaller parts reconnecting to create a giant robot, which promptly began to attack the surprised Avengers.

"Ha! Doom will not fall for your petty tricks, heroes!" Crowed the villain. "Doom is powerful! Doom will rule this city, and all will cower before me!"

"Yeah, not cowering so much, Vickie. Mostly we're just getting annoyed!" Came the metallic voice of Toni Stark as she fired her palm repulsers at the massive mech, knocking it to the ground one piece at a time. Thor had discovered that her lightning only powered the beast, and was therefore using her hammer in a more traditional manner, knocking it down with brute swings as if it was a Frost Giant or a bilge-snipe from back home.

"You will not call Doom Vickie!" Replied the outraged Doom. "Doom is Doom! Doom is Powerful!"

"Doom talks about himself in the third person!" Stark imitated the frankly hilarious dictator as he vainly protested her use of the embarrassing nickname. "So, yeah, historically not that awe-inspiring, Vickie Von Doom-Doom." As she finished her reply, Hawkeye shot an arrow into a critical junction of the massive Doom-bot, then fingered her bow, triggering a massive explosion. Both Doom and Doom-bot fell to their knees, the former screaming in rage. He didn't even have time to escape to his ship this time, for as soon as he got to his feet, he found himself surrounded by the grinning Avengers.

"Hey, Vickie. Thanks for the workout, bro. We were getting bored... On the other hand, you kinda wrecked the park, so we're going to need your credit card info to pay for this stuff. Kaay?" Sighing in defeat, Doctor Doom reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, placing it in the outstretched hand of the grinning Hawkeye. "Holy shit guys, he _actually_ gave me his wallet!" Laughed the assassin. "You're a well-behaved little bad guy, aren't you?" As she cooed at the humiliated Doom, Loki swiped the wallet from her hand, memorizing his credit card information before handing it over to Fury. Who knew when that would come in handy?

-XXXXX-

The next day, the team was hanging out on the couch when the wall monitor turned on.

"Incoming message from Dr. Reed Richards. Should I put it through?" JARVIS asked, and at Toni's affirmative hand wave, the image of their favorite stretchy man appeared, with the rest of the Fantastic Four in the background.

"Hey Reed. What's up?" Toni greeted her friend as the rest waved.

"Yeah... What the hell did you guys do to Doom? We got a message from him last night, a letter on vellum actually, telling us that he could never hate us as much as he does you, and that we can consider ourselves no longer his arch-nemeses. Now, this guy's hated me since college, so you must have done something absolutely terrible to him..." At this, the Avengers burst out laughing.

"Well," began Claire, with frequent pauses for laughter, "We kind of... absolutely publicly humiliated him multiple times, once with a cat. Then yesterday he showed up with a giant Doom-bunny and started having a full-on breakdown in central park about our nicknames for him. And I stole his wallet. Other than that, no clue."

The team on the other end of the Skype connection stared blankly at Hawkeye's grinning face in disbelief. "What nicknames?" Came the laughing voice of Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. "Cuz we've called him some doozies, and he just ignores us."

"Yeah, we've unanimously declared him the Amazing Vickie Von Doom-Doom, lord of the Doom-bunnies. Frankly, we haven't even called him all of that to his face, but Vickie and Doom-Doom seem to be enough, combined with the fact that Claire acts like it' Christmas whenever he shows up. Girl likes her target practice, what can we say?" Replied Toni. "She's also hit him with suction cup arrows a few times. We're all mean to him, but she's just cruel." Hawkeye looked incredibly proud of herself at this comment.

"Duude... High five!" The Torch had taken over the screen at this point, and Dr. Richards could be seen in the background, apparently torn between laughter and a face palm. Then their doorbell could be heard behind them, since they were in the entry lounge of their own team space.

"We have a delivery for the Fantastic Four," called a delivery man from outside the door. "From Vickie's Flower Shop."

"Also some from the Cat-Frenzy Pet Emporium," chimed in the voice of a second man. Reed walked over to the door, where the flower delivery men promptly invaded their lounge, leaving bouquets and vases of flowers all over the room. From the top, their massive arrangement looked like the symbol for the Fantastic Four. The second group of delivery men came in with what looked like massive amounts of cat toys and catnip, along with another kitten, pure white to the first one's solid black.

"What the hell? Who is all of this crap from?" Asked the bewildered team leader, stretching himself around the bustling workers to get to the head delivery guys.

"Eh, says here the flowers are from a 'Vickie Von Doom-Doom.'" said the first delivery man, with a not from the other man. At this, Reed turned back to the Skype screen, where the whole team was laughing, but Loki hardest of all. Seeing this, he glared lightly at the goddess of mischief.

"What was the point of this? These are expensive flowers, are you trying to make us think that Doom likes us now?" he asked sternly.

"Wha? No, I'm not trying to make you think Doom likes you. I stole his credit card info and ordered all kinds of random stuff with it. I just thought you might want to get in on the fun?" laughed the ginger goddess, happy to see the results of her... 'work.' At this, the rest of the team laughed. Thor smacked her sister up the back of the head, as did Stephanie, but Hawkeye and Toni laughed and gave her high fives before Lopt kissed her full on the mouth.

"That was lovely, dear, but you should have included me!" He pouted sensually into her ear.

"But sweetie, that would have spoiled my surprise for you!" She blinked guilelessly back up at him with wide eyes and a loving smile. As she spoke, the doorbell rang. "Look, there it is!" Loki bounced over to the elevator and headed down to the lobby where a single delivery man with a small package was waiting. Toni followed, breathing a sigh of relief that her home wasn't about to be invaded like the Baxter Building had.

"Hmm? What did you get? Asked the curious Lopt, attempting to peek into the box in his girlfriend's hands.

"It's a se~cret!" replied the girl, spinning away from his grasp and racing up to her room. Lopt stood alone in the hall, watching her go with a bewildered and slightly frightened expression.

-XXXXX-

Loki was upstairs, decidedly NOT fulfilling any of her companions' dire imaginings of what she might be doing. Instead, she was looking with reverence at the contents of her box. Nestled inside the cardboard box was another lined with velvet, and inside this were two rings, one sized for a male, one for a woman. While they looked like a simple set of matching Claddagh rings, they were special ordered for her, specifically designed for their magickal properties.

The main body of the rings were silver, the metal of wisdom, creativity, the moon and the Goddess. This was a basis for the rest of the ring, both because it was pretty and because it was the metal with the closest affiliation to her own power, her own magick.  
In the center of the ring, surrounded by the silver, was a band of pure tin, the metal of traveling and luck in travel. Finally, the heart of the Claddagh was made of a carved hematite stone, for grounding and stability.

The rings were only the basis for her true gift, one which she had been planning for Lopt for some time. Once she had finished laying her enchantments, the rings would allow her lover to travel home to his original dimension, but as long as hers was here, would always provide a way back. If they loaned her ring to one of her teammates or her sister, she could even go with him, for the ring would provide a path they both could follow. She had been seeking a way for him to go home for months, since she could tell he missed his family, and had sped up her attempts after Frigga's visit sparked his homesickness to an obvious degree.

Christmas was in three and a half months, and she planned to give him a gift that would outshine all others. It would take that long to lay the enchantments properly, anyway.

-XXXXX-

**A/N: Stealing Doom's credit card is an idea I took from "Harry Potter and the Trademark Dispute" by Clell65619. This story is short and uncontinued, but absolutely hilarious. Go read it...**


	15. Chapter 14

**Hello... I'm sorry this is late. *sheepish grin* I was really busy yesterday and completely spaced posting it. On the bright side, this is a really long (for me) chapter, because I didn't want to break up Halloween. This chapter is basically the entire inspiration/reason for the story. It's also the last chapter of pure fluff before plot-like things begin to occur.**

**Enjoy!**

-XXXXX-

Halloween was coming. The ground was covered in leaves and the city of New York in decorations. Claire had been busy putting pumpkins and fake spider webbing in the lounge when Thor approached her.

"Friend Hawkeye, what are you doing? Why do you have frightfully decorated vegetables and this white material, is it some strange Midgardian tradition?" Bryce overheard the question and began to explain the history of All Hallow's Eve and the spirit world, but Claire cut back in with an exasperated sigh.

"Yeah, nobody treats it like that anymore. What Halloween is now, is a day for kids to dress up in fun costumes and go door-to-door asking for candy. Older kids and young adults use the costumes for... other reasons... that I don't really want to go into right now. Mostly its about the kids, though."

"I like this! I wish to experience this tradition!" Boomed the excited Goddess, though whether it was at the idea of going out, or the idea of free candy, the others couldn't tell.

"Well," Toni walked into the room, having overheard the last part of the conversation, "I've got this fundraiser ball in the afternoon on Halloween. It's a costume party so you're welcome to come. It would be better if everyone came, actually. Maybe afterwards we can go trick-or treating. Actually, that sounds awesome, it's an excuse to leave early!"

"Fine by me, your parties are always fun, especially once everyone's trashed." Responded Claire, mentally rubbing her hands together in anticipation of the excellent blackmail material.

"Sorry, dear. If we're going trick-or treating afterwards we can't get smashed. That would be the wrong kind of press for the team." Replied Toni, smiling a bit at Claire's exaggerated pout. Seeing the interaction, Bryce smiled to herself but said nothing.

"I wish to Trick-or-Treat" Interrupted Thor in an excited shout. "What costume must I wear?" This question was met with thoughtful faces.

"Hmm... we should do some kind of group costume," mused Toni. "Let's get everyone together later and decide."

-XXXXX-

That evening, Toni had everyone in the break room together. "Okay guys, here's the deal. Thor, poor child that she is, has never been trick or treating. Neither have the Lokis for that matter. So, we need to change that this year. First, there's a costume party fund-raiser for Stark Industries, and before you start groaning, there's an open bar and we've invited some pretty interesting people this year. Then, we are going to leave and go trick-or-treating. If I can find a program, we might do something with chaperoning little kids or something. It would be fun, and amazing PR for the team. Soo... What do you say?"

The rest of the team was sitting on the couch, processing the last of Toni's monologue. Thankfully, they had lived with her long enough to be able to keep up when she got on a roll, so they could at least tell what she had been talking about.

""I think it's a great idea!" Piped up Claire. The Hawk was already picturing the blackmail opportunities of trick-or-treating, which far outstripped those of yet another drunken party. Also, it sounded like fun.

"Thor approves!" Boomed Thor.  
"Heh, Madame Loki agrees with Madam Thor, and approves of this venture." Loki was picturing similar opportunities to Hawkeye, and couldn't resist the third-person jab at her sister, who didn't seem to understand that she was teasing her and was beaming at her smaller sister. Lopt agreed with his girlfriend, and indicated as much with a nod of his head.

Nate looked at his excited partner and shrugged. "Da, OK. No bright colors, though." The rest of the group laughed and assured him that there would be no embarrassing costumes. For him anyway.

Bryce also agreed to the plan, and came up with the costume idea as well. "Did you know that they make comic books of us? The costumes in the comics are pretty funny, but not too embarrassing. What if... we dressed up as ourselves?" This idea was met with complete silence, until all at once everyone in the room burst out in approval.

"Yeah, it's a great idea," began Toni with a sly look on her face, "but does this mean that the great Zen Guru mistress, scientist extraordinaire and most serious person on the team, Doctor Bryce Banner, reads comic books?" The billionaire was shaking with suppressed laughter at this, which only increased as the doctor in question turned bright red.

"Peter left it in my lab! He's a teenager, he reads them!" Stuttered the diminutive genius to the laughter of the room.

"Oy, lay off her Toni, I saw a couple in your room too. She keeps them under her bed!" Laughed Claire to a blistering glare from her friend.

"They had comics of me back in the 40's," said Stephanie. "They even had trading cards, I'm not surprised they did it again for the team." The Captain just looked confused that the comic books were even an issue, they were normal to her. Though when she had looked at the new ones, the costumes were a bit more revealing than she was used to...

"Seriously now, it's a good idea. Should we make costumes that look homemade, or have some made that look exactly like the comics? I think it would be pretty hilarious if we had imitation costumes of the comic book that imitates us..." Said Loki, already planning in her mind. "I'll do the sewing if you guys help, and we've got enough time before halloween to get it done. Plus, if we order our costumes, somebody will leak what we're doing to the press, and it won't be nearly as cool."

"Agreed. We'll all help, and parts of the costumes should be knitted, which we'll do," said Toni, gesturing to Claire and Stephanie. "Let's get pictures of all of our characters to base the costumes off of." She tried to take the issue that had been going around the room away from Claire, who was staring at one of the pages in a mixture of shock and disgust.

"Bu... huh... But... Nooo...Ick!" Claire sat on the couch muttering nonsensically until Nate came over to see what was wrong and take the comic away, saw what she was looking at, and blanched. There on the page was a picture of Hawkeye and Redback (1), entwined in a graphically loving embrace. The image didn't show anything too detailed for younger readers, but it left plenty to the imagination.

Stephanie looked over. "Well, it's a bit risqué, but aren't you two..." she trailed off at Claire and Nate's emphatic shakes of their heads.

"Oh, gods no. Nate and I couldn't afford to be lovers with how often we're on missions together. Plus, we practically grew up together since we were teenagers. He's like a brother to me. That's... ugh... Also, I don't swing that way." Claire finally passed the book over, avoiding the curious looks of Stephanie and Thor. After a few minutes of this, Loki and Bryce took the two over to a corner to explain things.

-XXXXX-

Making the teams costumes was turning out to be far more fun than it should have been, especially since Doom had been thoroughly smacked when he came to 'avenge Doom's credit card bill!' and was currently languishing in a hospital in Latveria. Not that he had bothered to change his credit card number, Loki had tested as soon as he left and was using it to buy the fabrics for their costumes. In order to avoid leaking their plan to the public, she had gone out in a glamour, looking like a young mother getting fabric for her kid's costumes.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team was working on the other parts of their outfits. Thor had decided to re-create her armor out of styrofoam and hot glue, and occasionally entertained/embarrassed her teammates with requests of "With you hold this to my bosoms? I need to measure for the glue!"

Toni was meticulously adapting a plastic kid's ARC reactor from the toy store to fit over her own and look fake, while Claire had given up on finding a fake Hawkeye bow and had bought a cheap wooden "wild west" bow and arrow kit. She was on the roof, spray painting the bow and arrows black before she painted the fletching purple with nail polish. Since Loki and surprisingly Lopt were busy sewing the costumes, Toni and Claire had volunteered to make a fake Tesseract, as well as a cheap reproduction of the "Glowy Pimp-Stick of Doom."

Stephanie's costume was the most fun so far, as she had re-created her shield with paint and an old metal trash can lid. No one knew where she had got it, since she hadn't left the tower in ages, and when asked she simply replied that JARVIS had procured it for her. The entire team was enjoying the project, and when Toni, Claire and Stephanie finished their arts and crafts, they proceeded to make the knitted parts of the costumes. The characters in the comic books wore various scarves and ties and things that would be completely impractical in a fight, but looked very cool blowing in the wind or some such nonsense.

Loki and Lopt, meanwhile, were making the main parts of the costumes. Anything that could not be taken out of their closets, like the long leather jackets for the Loki costumes and Thor's gray spandex bodysuit (none of them knew why she had it, and they were all far to afraid of the answer to ask), had to be made. They planned to slightly adapt the skimpy comic book costumes, since autumn in New York might kill Claire and Bryce in accurate reproductions. Luckily, they were supposed to look hand made, so Loki could rush through a bit instead of insisting on her usual products, which looked so perfect they could be sold in major stores. With a glance at the comics and at her teammates' measurements, she got to work, Lopt across the table doing the same. Apparently magic was not the only "women's work" he was fond of...

She worked steadily, only pausing to absentmindedly smack Claire's hand away from the purple ribbon, but not until after she had managed to steal a length of it. She decided not to bother the assassin about it, since she looked so absurdly proud of herself, giggling as she ran away.

-XXXXX-

Halloween was almost upon them, and everyone's costumes were done. Somehow, the group had managed to strike the perfect balance between awesome costumes and obviously homemade. Sadly, a mission in the far east had come up concerning one of Nate's former contacts, and he was forced to go, leaving them one short for the team.

"It's alright, he didn't have a choice," said Claire. "We'll just tell people the truth, that he's on a mission. It will make it even better." The truth was, the team was almost unrecognizable in their costumes, mostly because a) they didn't fit the stereotypes about their characters and b) why would they dress up as themselves? Everyone was really happy with how it turned out, and congratulated Bryce on her brilliant idea.

"Okay guys, here's the deal. The charity ball goes from four to midnight, and we'll be there from the start. Then at seven, we're meeting a group from the local orphanage to take them out trick-or treating. The kids range from eight to fourteen, so the older ones will help us keep the younger busy and on track. We take the kids out until nine or nine thirty, then if we aren't tired we can go back to the party. Sound good?"

"Aye aye, Captain Stark!" The rest replied, laughing when the billionaire flipped them off. Toni stole Thor's styrofoam Mjolnir and chucked it at the group, where it was deflected by Stephanie's trash can shield before they all burst out laughing. The group wandered down to the car, stashing the portable Iron Man suit and the real Mjolnir in the trunk, with the rest of their weapons, just in case. While they would be trick or treating on foot, the car would follow close behind to carry stuff and possibly tired children. As they made their way to the car, Toni walked next to Claire, quietly sliding her hand in her friend's.

-XXXXX-

As the team walked into Stark Industries's fundraiser, only the doormen who knew them well recognized them right away. As they walked into the ballroom, the rest of its occupants, clad in formal dress and expensive and skimpy costumes, turned to face them. One man quietly signaled to Security, which Toni heard through her earpiece and laughed at. Eventually, the guests figured out who they were and polite laughter spread throughout the room, coupled with a bit of looking down their noses at the most rich and/or powerful people at the party.

Speaking of rich people, Toni had been there for only a few minutes when she groaned and gave a massive fake sneeze. "Ah-choo! Oh my, my Vervex allergy is acting up... Oh look, open bar, the only known cure!" This quick monologue was met with giggles from the rest of the team, who knew exactly what she meant. 'vervex' was Latin for "dolt", and there was plenty of those in this room. As Toni made her way over to the bar, she was followed by Claire. The rest of the team left them alone together and made their way through the crowd.

A couple of hours later, they were all ready to go. Toni, despite having spent her night by the bar, was only a little buzzed, and in a person like her most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. Claire was in a similar state, but the only apparent change was the fact that she was cuddled up next to Toni, her arm around the billionaire's waist. Toni's arm was comfortably wrapped around the assassin as well. As they left the bar, the two separated, but as soon as they were in private, they cuddled together in the car on the way to the orphanage.

-XXXXX-

As the big black car (not a limo, because Toni hated those, and thought they were impractical) full of super heroes pulled up in front of the orphanage, a small crowd of children came spilling out excitedly, dressed as princesses and knights, ninjas and pirates, and one particularly adorable boy dressed up as a male vision of Captain America. As they prepared to take the kids out, the matron came up to Stephanie.

"Captain? Before you leave, could we have a favor? David is sick, and he's absolutely devastated that he can't come. Could you and the team come visit him before you leave? He's not contagious..."

"Of course!" Stephanie assured the nervous woman with a warm smile. "Hey guys, one of the boys is sick and can't come. Let's go visit him, okay?" Thor immediately bounded over, a look of devastation on her face at the idea that one of her playmates for the night was sick. The rest of the team followed at a more sedate pace, Loki holding the hand of the sick boy's little sister.

"Hey David, look who's here!" Said the matron as the team shuffled into the small bedroom. "It's the Avengers!" David, who didn't really seem sick enough to keep back, jumped up excitedly.

"Wow! Real heroes!" Exclaimed the small boy, bouncing on the bed in his Iron Man pajamas. "You're the Iron Man! Wow!"

Toni laughed. "Yeah, little man, I'm the Iron Man. When I'm not in the suit its Iron Woman, but I like that it works both ways. And you're David, right?"

"Woo! You know my name! Iron Woman knows my name! And, and, you're Captain America, and Thor, and Hawkeye, and, wow!" The kid was so excited at this point that he was vibrating, looking between the team quickly as if he wasn't sure they'd still be there if he looked away for too long. Then he started coughing, big hacking coughs that looked painful, and explained why he wasn't coming.

"Asthma?" Bryce asked the Matron quietly. At the woman's affirmative nod, Bryce took a stethoscope from Heimdall knew where and gently began listening to his lungs. After asking the Matron a few questions, she waved the others off, choosing to stay and care for the little boy instead.

So the team, now short two members, left the orphanage. David's sister was still clinging to Loki's hand, the two girls' matching ginger hair making them look like sisters, or like a mother and daughter. Lopt looked fondly at the sight, images of tiny Lokis running through his mind. Meanwhile, Thor had made fast friends with the rest of the group, hardly leaving any for Stephanie. The captain didn't mind too much, though, since she was preoccupied with the boy John, who had dressed as a male version of her.

As the rest of the team played with the children, going door to door in search of candy and tricks, Toni and Claire walked at the rear, making sure no one got lost or fell behind. As the rest of them observed other groups of trick or treating, they drew a parallel between the two and the other kids' parents, and by the end of the night Toni and Claire had been dubbed the 'moms,' and were yelled and whined at accordingly. They took the ribbing well, since it allowed them to scold the wayward 'children,' as well as walk a little further back to talk.

As the night wore on, the two normal, human members of the team were getting tired, as were the kids, so they decided it was time to head back. Thor and the Captain had been sampling the candy and were becoming annoyingly hyper, staging mock battles with their foam hammer and trash can lid shield. As the others herded the kids back to the orphanage, Toni looked back at the two and decided that letting them back into the fundraiser party would be nothing short of disastrous. Also, she was hungry.

"Hey guys, I don't think going back to my stupid party after this is gonna work out. Thor especially might kill somebody, and I'm starving. What do you say to a late-night IHOP run after we drop the kids off?" Her suggestion was met with approval from the adults and a couple of jealous groans from the kids, and it was decided.

-XXXXX-

Back at the orphanage, Bryce was in her element helping David feel better. Once he realized that she was the 'actual Hulk! Wow!', the kid hero-worshipped her as much as he did the others. The feeling of people admiring the Hulk was new, and while she knew that the team wasn't afraid of her, it was still a pleasant shock to meet a tiny kid who felt the same. A rumbling in the back of her head told her that Hulk felt the same.

She was just finishing up, giving the Matron a couple of prescriptions and telling David stories about the team, when the rest of the kids trooped through the door. David's sister Amanda immediately ran to his bed, still dragging Loki by the hand, and set her candy pail on David's lap.

"Here brother, half of it is for you. I can't eat that much candy, and it's no fair that you didn't get to come. We had sooo much fun, and Miss Loki is sooo nice, and all of the others too, but she's my favorite!" Amanda had tried to whisper the last part, but the team and the Matron could hear her, and when a pleased flush and a smile grew on Loki's face, Lopt drew Toni aside quietly, gesturing the Matron over as well. A quiet conversation later, and Toni handed the Matron a business card.

-XXXXX-

As they left the orphanage, Bryce and Loki promised to come back and visit David and Amanda before being dragged out the door and into the car by a starving Toni and Claire. On the way to IHOP, Thor asked to drive, but that just brought back memories of the first (and last) time they let the goddess of thunder behind a wheel. It had been just after the Battle of New York, and Thor had just moved into the tower...

/ Flashback /

"Hello friend Stark! What is it you plan to do with that strange box?" Asked the goddess, walking into Toni's garage, where the billionaire in question was tuning up one of her many sports cars.

"This is a car, Thor. A porsche, to be specific, and I just finished replacing the brake pads and tuning everything up. I'm about to take it for a spin, you want to come?" Toni was in a good mood, as she always was after a day in her garage, and saw no harm in letting Thor tag along.

"Verily! I would greatly enjoy seeing the world from one of your metal horses! How do I mount it?" And the foreign goddess climbed on top of the porsche, looking around for reins.

"Heh, no Thor. You get inside. Didn't you ride in a van when you were in New Mexico? Your boyfriend John something had one, yeah?"

"You mean this short and colorful object is the same as John Foster's 'van' monster? I was attacked many times by that beast, I do not think it wise to go near one of its kin. What if this one dislikes me as well?"

Toni was having a hard time not laughing, but managed to reply. "Oh Thor, the van didn't attack you, John's just a really bad driver. Here, come in, we can't have you afraid of cars, its just not practical!" She held the door open for Thor and gestured for her to climb in, though with such a tall woman it was more like squeezing in instead...

Toni drove the two out to the countryside, where Thor began looking around nervously. "Friend Stark, I believe it has brought us here to kill us!" she whispered frantically to the driver, only eliciting more laughter from Toni.

"Oh, honey... This isn't a creature, it's not alive! I drove us out here, because I think it might help you to get over your fear if you take a turn driving. Out here you couldn't possibly run into anything, and I can help you if something goes wrong. So we're gonna switch chairs, okay?" Toni got out and walked over to Thor side of the car, triggering the roof retraction as an afterthought.

"Very well, Woman of Iron. I will conquer this beast as I did my goats, those whom no one could tame!" Thor declared boldly, flinching as the metal roof seemed to disappear into the back of the car. Toni shook her head at her friend's antics, but settled into the passenger seat.

What followed was two and a half hours of misery on Toni's part, and utter terror on Thor's, but by the end, Thor could... sort of drive. She still didn't understand the concepts of gears and parking brakes, but she had learned to be gentle with the gas pedal. Unfortunately, Thor didn't seem to have enough control with the gas pedal to get anything between 20mph and 80-100mph, it was all or nothing. It was at the slower end of this register, with the parking brake on, that Thor drove the two all the way back to the tower, with Toni almost crying in the passenger seat. Toni let her do it because she had already done so much damage that a little more didn't matter anymore, and because this was going to be Thor's last time in the driver's seat... EVER.

/ Flashback End /

"Yeah, no Thor. Never again... That porsche was barely salvageable, I had to replace half the engine." Toni flatly refused Thor's request to drive, with emphatic nods from the rest of the team, who had heard the story. Surprisingly, Loki and Lopt were both excellent drivers, as they had apparently both snuck down to Midgard in the past to make mischief and play with the technology. Toni and Claire were both excellent drivers as well, though they both had a thing for speed, the Hawk more than Toni. Stephanie had a vintage motorcycle and refused to drive "newfangled deathtraps," despite the modern team members' insistences that the new cars were safer. Bryce could drive as well as the next person, and aside from Loki was the most trusted of the group in the driver's seat when they didn't have a chauffeur, like now. Toni had sent Happy home to his family when the group finished with the kids, and had taken over the driving herself before Bryce kicked her to shotgun.

The group pulled into a different IHOP than they were used to since it was closer to the orphanage than the tower, and were seated by a frazzled and awe-struck waiter. They had just ordered their food and started on their drinks, when Thor's (rugged and heavy-duty) cell phone went off. It was Darcy, and she was stranded at a bar somewhere in Manhattan, and could someone come get her please? She sounded extremely sheepish as she admitted to having been ditched by her date, and with a sigh, Toni and Claire agreed to go get her.

It turned out to be quite a ways to where Darcy was, and they found their friend shivering on the side of the road in a "sexy hitler" costume complete with pineapple. What that actually had to do with Hitler they didn't know, but the shivering Darcy was certainly grateful to get in the car.

By the time they made it back to IHOP, their table at the restaurant was a mess. Thor was still playing with her styrofoam hammer, and had obviously had a lot more sugar, as evidenced by the empty cocoa mugs littering the table in front of her. Stephanie was fending her off with the fake shield, an irritated look on her face. Bryce was watching the two with amusement, and the Lokis had gone off to another table.

"Well, if we weren't already the only ones here, we certainly would be after this!" Toni sighed and made a mental note to tip the waiter very well. She sat down next to Claire, and the man brought most of their food.

"The pancakes are no good now, we had to make new ones, so they will be a few minutes." The billionaire thanked him warmly and ordered coffee for herself and Claire, who was leaning her head in her hands exhaustedly and flexing her knee, which had been injured in her last mission and wasn't completely healed up. When the rest of their food finally arrived, they ate quickly, then headed back to the tower to sleep.

-XXXXX-

**(1) Redback- I don't know if this has come up before, since I usually just refer to him as Nate. I couldn't see a dude being called Black Widow, so I found another deadly red and black spider with a more masculine name. I admit that it's not as cool as Black Widow though, which is why I don't use it often...**


	16. Chapter 15

**Hey guys, here's this week's chapter. It's a bit short, but it felt like the right place to end this bit. As promised, the Plot begins to emerge, as well as more humor, because, well, this ****_is_**** essentially a crack-fic.**

-XXXXX-

"Toni Stark, here is your mission folder." The junior SHIELD officer's offer was completely normal, but Toni's reaction to it was not.

"Hell no!"

It was a well known fact, among people who knew Toni well, that she did not like to be handed things, especially by people she wasn't close to. The look she gave the agent, who was still standing there with the folder outstretched, could have peeled paint. They stood in a face-off for a good five minutes before Nate, who had been standing off to the side with the rest of the team, sighed and reached around her to take the folder. He set it on the table in front of her. Toni nodded her thanks to the massive Russian and picked up the folder, flipping through it with a smirk. Across the table, Director Fury palmed his face, and it was unclear whether the shaking of his shoulders was laughing or crying.

"Avengers, please pay attention. Despite Ms. Stark's... preferences, we don't have time for divas today. SHIELD has recorded Chitauri energy signatures in the area around New York. Since it's obviously not Loki's doing, and it has been over a year since the Battle of New York, we cannot help but consider the possibility that Thanos may be returning. You've had a time of relative peace since Doctor Von Doom is practically a joke against the lot of you, but it's time to train, time to prepare for an invasion as bad or worse than what you've already been through. Loki wanted to rule; Thanos will come to destroy. Loki, we need all the information you have on Thanos. You've given us a lot, but we need any detail that can help, anything at all. Are we clear, team?"

The director's words were met with nods and game faces as the team shifted into 'serious mode.' Over the next few days, Avengers Tower was a bustle of activity as they prepared to fight the Chitauri menace. Peter Parker was living at the Tower full time, training under Nate and Claire in hand-to-hand in order to help all of them improve. The spider bite may have gifted the kid with strength and reflexes, but he became even more deadly with formal training. After the humans on the team had checked, double-checked and even triple-checked their weapons and suits, Loki had spent days on the roof feeling for Chitauri energy and everyone had been buzzing on edge for days, the attack finally began.

The team was in the break room again, relaxing after dinner when the phone rang. Outside the window, an explosion could be heard and the team immediately sprung into action. The Captain, Redback and Hawkeye raced for the quinjet. Bryce stripped off her shirt, revealing the super-stretchy sports bra beneath before running up the stairs to the roof, where she transformed and jumped on top of an incoming troop carrier, roaring in fury and sheer excitement. Toni stepped through the suit apparatus and took off, guns blazing as the Asgardians used their own ways to join the fray. After seeing how well it worked in the last battle, Thor immediately headed for the skies nearest the portal, blasting the incoming aliens as they came through and clogging the skies with corpses. Loki had pulled out a spear like the one she had before, only less evil, and was stabbing and blasting Chitauri as she teleported around the city. Lopt's actions were similar, only he was more familiar with his sword Laevateinn, that wielded fire and magic along with cold hard steel. With the addition of Spider-man, who had been tasked with helping evacuate civilians, the Avengers were winning, slowly but surely, until Thanos arrived.

-XXXXX-  
He came through the portal and appeared in front of Loki, killing everything around him with a wave of power. As she glared at him, the Mad Titan started to chuckle, growing louder and louder until he was cackling madly at the sky.

"Hello, little goddess." His deep, rumbling voice was tinged with endless madness and the promise of violence to match it. "Where is my Tesseract? Where is the Cube? Give it to me and I might let you live... as a slave of course. You really don't deserve the joys of Death." He chuckled again, a sound that may have been friendly from anyone else, but from him was simply terrifying. He stalked up to the mildly shaking Loki, who was frozen in place by his presence, and gripped her around the neck. Just as he was about to leave with her to torture her at his leisure, there was an immense crack of thunder and a red and silver blur hit the ground beside them in a shimmer of rainbow lights.

"LOKI!" This cry burst from a massive blonde man in a red cloak, wielding a hammer almost like Mjolnir, with a shorter handle and larger head than her sister's weapon. Judging on the description from Freyja and Lopt, Loki surmised that this was the other-Thor, come to search for his brother.

"Ah, Thor, a little help here?!" She wheezed from within Thanos's iron grip. "I know where your brother i-ack!" She was cut off by a threatening squeeze of the Mad Titan's fist.

"No, little Loki. I want you to talk to me, not this other Asgardian who has come to save you." At the name 'Loki,' Thor stiffened.

"You are the female version of my brother? I was told about you. I will save you, then take me to my brother!" With that, Thor swung his hammer directly into Thanos's wrist, hitting a bundle of nerves with the edge and forcing the Titan to drop Loki. Immediately, Loki spun around, and shot a beam on energy into the air with her staff. A rip in the air opened, and at her urging, Thor blasted Thanos into it with Mjolnir for Loki to seal.

"There... he's trapped in a pocket dimension... and since I used tesseract energy, it's stronger than he is... he won't be getting out anytime soon," Loki panted, leaning on her staff and rubbing her neck, where bruises had already started to form. "Now, Thor. I'm afraid i'm not sure exactly where your brother is, because he's been teleporting around fighting the Chitauri. But if that shooting star is what I think it is, Toni's about to finish this battle again, and we will all join together then. Is this acceptable?"

"Yes, verily. That will do, near-sister!" Thor boomed jovially as he swung at a clump of enemies. "Let us now make acquaintance through battle, in the old tradition!"

-XXXXX-

As Loki, Thanos, and the male Thor had their standoff, female Thor had teamed up with the Hulk. As an alien approached one of them, they would throw them towards the other, who then proceeded to bat them out of the sky. This was interspersed with periods of simple destruction, where they batted everything out of the sky. All in all, the two were having fun, kicking ass, and not bothering to take names. As Toni flew by, there seemed to be some kind of score or count going on, proving that the Hulk was smarter than she was given credit for as she yelled out a joyous:

"Three hundreds and twenty and six! I beating puny sparky god!" Grinning at the Hulk's antics, Toni looked up at the portal, shooting aliens off of her left and right. She had a sinking feeling of deja vu as she caught a peek of a massive ship just beyond the portal. Luckily, this time she had planned for that.

On the roof of Stark Tower was a new addition, replacing the crazy Tesseract machine of before with a massive missile launcher. Personally, she thought the thing looked tacky, but had had it installed just in case the Chitauri really were dumb enough to put the control ship in the same place. Of course, since they were hive minded and this was a different hive from the one they killed before, the new ship didn't know how their predecessors were defeated. Toni didn't know that, however. All she knew was that she had a shot, and she was going to take it.

"JARVIS, do you have control of the ground-to air missile?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then aim it at that portal, and fire when ready! We need to stop this before they do more damage to the city!"

"Yes, ma'am." And with that, JARVIS blasted the Chitauri mother ship out of the sky, and the portal closed, cutting off the signal and causing the remaining aliens to collapse like so many puppets with their strings cut. She flew back to the Tower, where she was happy to discover that the metal plating cover over the windows had worked, preventing undue damage to the Tower this time through. She retracted the metal plating and took off her suit, deciding to wait for the others to join her as she tended to her relatively minor wounds.

**A/N: Thor and Hulk's scorekeeping is based on Legolas and Gimli in the LotR movies. I couldn't help myself...**


	17. Chapter 16

**Hey... Please don't hate me... I've been getting over being sick and got distracted by Spring Break starting and completely forgot to post this on Friday. Sorry...**

-XXXXX-

Soon, she was joined by Loki, along with a blonde giant of a man. Judging by his archaic speech and recognizable clothing, Toni had to guess that he was at the least Asgardian, possibly even the male equivalent to Thor that Frigga had mentioned. If that was the case, then things were bound to get interesting when Lopt showed up.

Next came Claire, Nate and Stephanie, Claire limping again on her re-injured knee. She fell on the couch next to Toni and collapsed onto her, leaning limply against her shoulder. Toni reached her arm around the other's shoulder as Nate and Stephanie sat next to each other on the other couch.

Finally, the last three came in, Thor carrying a sleeping Bryce as Lopt followed. As soon as Lopt spotted the blonde stranger in the room, he froze. Male-Thor saw this, and bounded over to his brother.  
"Loki! How I have missed you, brother! You must come home, now. All of Asgard, including Father, was in mourning until Heimdall caught a glimpse of you. Father sent me to come get you, but I was in this Asgard for far too long. We must away!" Thor's enthusiasm drained throughout his speech as Lopt did not answer, but backed away and put his arm around his lover and counterpart.

"I will not go, Thor. I have love here, friends who accept me and the start of a new family. I wish to find a way back to Asgard, it is true, but only if I can return here. Otherwise I simply will not go." Thor looked at the floor.

"I understand, brother. And I will not force you to leave your love, even if she is yourself. Father may grow angry, but I know Mother will understand as well..." Even as he said this, the mountain of a man managed to look uncannily like a kicked puppy. Loki, the female Loki, took pity on him and drew him aside.

"Worry not, cousin. My gift to your brother for the Midwinter festivities will allow him to travel freely. If you would help me, may I have a few strands of your hair and your silence? I promise not to use them for harm, and destroy them when I finish."

"Of course, cousin! Your tidings make me glad indeed!" Even whispering, Thor managed to sound booming. Loki gave a wry smile and accepted that Lopt would at least know that something was up, even if he didn't know what.

"Now, do you actually have a way to get back, Thor?" Asked Bryce, who had awoken in time to hear most of the conversation. "Odin must have given you a way to get back, yes?"

"Yes, tiny woman! Odin had the dwarves and elves further enchant Mjolnir so that I may use it to travel dimensions!" At Thor's declaration, Lopt looked a bit jealous, as the female Thor perked up in interest. She wandered over and began playing with her counterpart's hammer, testing the weight and heft of it.

"Hmm, the balance is different, but this is nigh as great a weapon as my own!" She declared, with a smile on her face.

"Nigh? Mjolnir is the best weapon in the nine realms!" Returned the indignant male.

"Aye, it is. My Mjolnir, that is!" The woman replied. "And she didn't need special enchantments to do it!" At this the male Thor audibly growled.

"I challenge you to a duel of Hammers!" He shouted, and the two almost began then and there, had their siblings not stepped between them.

"Brother, do not destroy my home with your posturing," began Lopt, and Loki continued,

"Yes, dear sister, let us go into the desert where we may all watch and judge this great contest! And not destroy the city any more than it already is."

With the Thors' grudging agreement, the group piled into the quinjet and flew to New Mexico, landing not far from the town where Thor first fell to earth.

-XXXXX-

"Okaay, ladies and gents!" Claire had her full 'rodeo announcer voice' on, a relic from her circus days. "Thaa rules for this here shindig are as follows! Ah-One, no weapons except for the hammers at hand! Ah-Two! Only fight each other, no damage to the crowd! Aaand Three! Don't kill each other! First one to yield or be knocked unconscious wins! Do you accept these conditions?" The Thunder god and goddess nodded, huge smiles on both their faces at the prospect of a battle. "Then, go at least 50 yards out, and have at ye!" Loki, in the meantime, had been using her magic to make a set of stands with plush chairs, as Lopt created a machine to pop the bags of popcorn and chill the sodas that Toni had pulled out of the jet. As the two began to battle, the rest of them settled down to watch, passing around the food and generally treating it like a day at the fair.

As the two Thors joined in battle, it was like a clash of laughing Titans. Bursts of lightning and rolling thunder echoed through the air as the two met in a whirling clash of red cloaks and silver steel, practically blurring as they fought. Every so often a yell would erupt from the fracas, either wordless or yells of encouragement. "Oh, good swing!"

"Hah! You swing like a girl!"

"I am a girl, what's your excuse, princess?"

"Raaaaahhhh! No one calls the Odinson _princess_!"

Frankly, the conversation going on was just as much fun as the battle itself for the onlookers, who could only see the two due to their experience in high-speed fights. At one point, the combatants took to the air, shooting bolts and sprays of lighting at each other but since it was both of their elements, it had little effect. Darcy, who was watching, commented

"Huh. I wonder why my taser worked, then..." But no one had a good answer to that.

Eventually, the clashes slowed and stopped,, and the dust cleared to reveal one red-and-silver body on the ground, with another, panting, standing above them. The winner dragged the unconscious loser over to the group, a triumphant smile adorning her face.

"Hah! Tell me someone got video of that! Sif deserves to see the mighty Thor laid low by a woman, we can send it back with him! Please?" Laughed Lopt, imagining the hilarity such a scene would cause in the male-dominated Asgard of his youth.

"Oh, you better believe I got video! Hell, this is already on YouTube!" Laughed Toni in return. "It's got five hundred hits in the last two minutes!"

Thor, however, was not listening to her friends gloat over her, but had grabbed a bottle of water and was gently waking her male counterpart. As he began to stir, she held him up and helped him take a drink.

"I have not enjoyed such a battle in many years! Thank you for the challenge!" She thanked him sincerely, her enjoyment written in every line of her face. "I apologize for hitting your head like that, I did not mean to... May we fight again before you leave?"

The male Thor laughed ruefully and sat up, rubbing his head where she had hit him. "Indeed, sister-me! We must fight again, this was a glorious battle! None in Asgard can beat me like you did, save Father!" As the two wandered off, chatting like old friends, there was no sign of the angry fight from before.

"Huh... I do believe we have been played," mused Toni. "They weren't angry at all!"

"Of course not," scoffed Lopt, and

"They just wanted an excuse to test themselves against each other. Any excuse to fight..." Finished Loki.

"You know," said Claire with a funny look at the two lovers, "it is downright creepy when you two finish each others' sentences. Adorable, but creepy." Everyone laughed at this, and with a wave of Loki's hand, the stands and machines had vanished as if they were never there. The team piled into the Quinjet and headed back to Stark Tower, Bryce fussing over man-Thor's impressive head bump.

-XXXXX-

As the heroes of earth enjoyed their victory over the Chitauri, Thanos was far from finished with them. Trapped in the pocket dimension by Thor and Loki, he was slowly chipping away at the cracks in the 'walls' of his prison. It was obvious that brute force was not enough in this case, but he would not give up in his search for the Tesseract. Loki had stolen it for him, but she had not delivered. She knew where it was, and Thanos didn't care how many people he had to kill to get the location out of her...

As his magic finally found a chink in the walls, he grinned a death's-head grin. In another dimension, a murder of crows fell dead from the sky.


	18. Chapter 17

**(Edit published May 22 2013)**  
-XXXXX-

Director Fury was uncomfortable. The reason for this was simple: that battle with Thanos had been far too simple. There was simply no way that the powerful and insane Titan Loki had described, who had bound and tortured her for years in his private, time-locked dimension, who raised armies of millions with a gesture of his hand, who was rumored to be carrying on a love affair with Death herself, would lose that easily. The Chitauri battle plan was the same as it had been when Loki led them, almost a distraction instead of an actual attack...

That was it! Thanos had brought the Chitauri as a distraction, to get Loki on her own and find out what she did with the Cube. In that case, they likely owed the earth's survival to the timely arrival of male-Thor, who had caught the Titan by surprise. If that was the case, this battle was only the beginning. A war was on the horizon, a war for the fate of Earth itself, and Dom Fury would be prepared.

Turning from the window where he had been thinking, Director Fury strode to the control deck of his Helicarrier, Agent Hill falling into step behind him.

"Agent, a war is ahead of us, a war the likes of which we have not seen. I want everybody ready. Call Richards, Stark, Xavier, call everyone. We don't know where Thanos will strike next, and we need people spread out and ready to strike."

"Yessir," came Hill's professional reply, before the agent turned on his heel and began barking orders to a series of more junior agents, and the Helicarrier turned into a hive of professional activity, like a well-oiled machine of war.

-XXXXX-

Back in New York, Loki watched the rest of the group laugh, the two Thors engaged in a drinking contest as the rest cheered them on. She reached up to feel the bruises on her neck, vivid purple-black bruises stark against the white of her neck serving as a reminder of her past mistake. Thanos would not let go of his search for the Tesseract, and her prison dimension would only hold him for so long. Slipping away from the group, Loki made her way to the roof.

"Heimdall, I know you can hear me!" She shouted to the sky, "warn Odin to keep the Tesseract safe. If Thanos discovers its location, he will march on Asgard, and he will bring more than just Chitauri when he does... I was angry, and I lost my way for a time, but I do not want Asgard to fall, any more than I will let Midgard fall. Thank you, Heimdall." And with that, she made her way back inside.

Lopt watched her go, as he had watched her leave. Following her to the roof he had overheard his warning, and hearing the fear in her voice he knew that it was time to act. Christmas was coming soon, Thanksgiving having been forgotten in the frenzy of preparation for the invasion. Christmas was coming, and he knew just what Loki needed to cheer her up.

-XXXXX-

Christmas was coming to New York, and Avengers Tower was no exception. Each of the teammates' rooms had a different wreath on their door, the colors and decorations varying based on their talents and uniform colors. The male Thor, having been assured of his brother's imminent return to Asgard, had headed home, having missed his friends and family in the time he had gone. Also, Odin had declared him official heir after Lopt's short bout of insanity and consequent disappearance. Of course, the Odin in their universe had done the same, for much the same reason so Lopt wasn't particularly surprised. He was curious about whatever had calmed his brother, but since it was Loki who did it, he trusted that he would find out when she was ready for him to.

Volstagg the kitten had a sprig of holly haphazardly tied to his collar and a tiny santa hat attached to his head, and didn't look particularly happy about it, even as anyone who saw him cooed at the cuteness of it. Fred had not escaped either, only his adornment was a tiny green elf hat with a bell on the end. No one admitted to being the decorator of the pets, but it was generally accepted that it had to be one of the Lokis, since the hats had not come off despite their fuzzy wearers' best efforts.

Overall, it was a holly jolly season, and the Avengers were celebrating, each in their own way. For some of them, it was the eggnog, spiked liberally with various types of alcohol and sprinkled with nutmeg and cinnamon. For some, the pie. Toni kept the fridge stocked with all flavors, from cherry and apple to pumpkin and pecan. In fact, she had to keep restocking the cherry since it mysteriously disappeared every day or so, a few crumbs on the counter and a red-smeared fork the only indication that anything had happened to it. This went on for days, and many cherry pies vanished until one day Toni wandered into the kitchen and saw Claire, eating a slice. An empty pie tin and a can of whipped cream sat on the counter behind her as she hurriedly tried to hide her current plate and the last of the pie.

"Seriously? Girl, how the hell could you have eaten so much pie? You're like, buff!" Toni burst out incredulously. Claire, her cheeks stuffed comically full with pie and whipped cream, swallowed, the lump traveling visibly down her throat as she grinned, a bit of cherry stuck between her front teeth.

"Umm... lots of exercise?" The assassin made a comical sight, and Toni eventually grinned and hugged her.

"See, this is why I like you so much. You're so cute!" Claire flushed at Toni's squealed declaration and turned in her grip to hug the billionaire back.

"Yeah? How much?" She asked flirtatiously.

" This much." And the two leaned in for a kiss. As soon as their lips touched, however, the moment was gone. They broke apart awkwardly, and Toni was the first to speak. "Yeah... That didn't really work, did it?"

"Nope. I really thought it would, but I'm just not feeling it. Sorry..." Came the hawk's sheepish reply. At the smile on Toni's face, she looked relieved. "So, how about we skip the kissing and just go back to the epic bromance? I'm a great wingman..."

"Yeah, that sounds great. So, we pretend the kiss never happened?"

"Ayup..."

"Okay, then! So, is there any of that cherry pie left, or do we need to send someone out for more... Again?"

"Oi! I resemble that remark!"

It was to this scene, with the two laughing and clutching at each other, that the rest of the team entered the kitchen. With a laughing twinkle in her eye, Claire winked at Toni, and the billionaire winked back, the two deciding to let the rest of the team think what they wanted to about the relationship that didn't actually exist...

-XXXXX-

A week passed, and before they knew it it was christmas. While none of the Avengers were particularly religious, they all participated whole-heartedly in the 'booze, lights and presents' part of the tradition. On Christmas Eve, the team wandered through the break room to get to the kitchen for breakfast, only to be stopped by the sight of a rather impressive Christmas tree taking up the middle of the room. They couldn't tell if it was real or fake, but it was certainly sturdy, given the fact that Volstagg, who had grown rather fat by this point, was sitting on one of the branches about half-way up in a nest of pine needles and tinsel. He gave the passing humans and gods a cursory glance, then laid his head down and went back to sleep.

When they reached the kitchen, each Avenger in turn found a festive Toni in a velvet Santa Hat, whistling as she made eggnog-flavored french toast and gingerbread coffee for everyone. Claire sat on the counter in a green elf hat with a bell on the tip, throwing marshmallows at the dancing chef as Toni attempted to catch them in her mouth. The two were laughing as christmas music played over the speakers, and gladly gestured the others to the table.

"No dine-and-dash today!" Toni sing-songed, setting the sugary food in front of each of her teammates in turn. "It's Christ~maaas~!" And she bounced back to the stove.

"How long has she been up?" Stephanie asked Claire. "It's only seven-thirty..."

"I dunno," came the elf's giddy reply, "but there was sugar and coffee and Irish cream and eggnog and rum and we made french toast!"

"Well, the eggnog and rum was last night, so I think they never went to bed," deduced Bryce. "Well, at least they're having fun. And Toni's a surprisingly good drunken chef," she continued after a bite of french toast. With that, the rest of the team stopped staring and dug in.

After breakfast, the group stayed in their pajamas as they grouped in the lounge and watched children's christmas movies, singing along with the claymation snowmen and reindeer games. As it grew later, they brought their gifts to each other out of their rooms, John Foster and Darcy joining them on the couches. When it hit three, they sat down for a late lunch, taking their slices of pie and mugs of hot cocoa back out with them as they settled around the tree, a tree which had conveniently moved aside on its own when they needed to see the television. Then began the presents.

First came everyone's gifts from Toni. These consisted of no-limit credit cards for everyone, a plush Loki for Thor, a stress ball for Bryce (who threw it at Toni's head and was gifted with a coffee mug shaped like a lab beaker instead), a new set of handguns for Nate, a beautiful and vintage formal dress for Stephanie (who almost cried when she realized it was in fact hers, that Howard Stark had kept in storage throughout the long years), and matching gold reindeer figurines for the Lokis, which combined to make a set of bookends. The mischief gods flipped her off for this gift, but did so with smiles on their faces. Finally came her gift to Claire, a carved set of bow-and-arrows in ebony, with ivory fittings and decorations. They were obviously decorative and extremely beautiful.  
The rest of the gifts were much the same, ranging from the sweet and thoughtful to the outrageous gag gifts. Darcy's squeal of joy at the new iPod was hilarious and slightly deafening, but enjoyable for everyone. The best gifts of the evening, however, were saved for last.

-XXXXX-

Most everyone had passed out their gifts when Loki and Lopt both began to speak up. Lopt paused, smiled, and waited for Loki to go first, to which she shook her head stubbornly. "At the same time then?" He asked with another smile.

"Yeah, okay," his lover acquiesced, sounding slightly nervous.

After a count of three, the two asked as one: "Will you marry me?"

The reaction was varied. The two lovers were laughing and kissing, Thor looked happy but somewhat disturbed, Stephanie was crying with joy, and Claire, Toni, Darcy, Nate and Bryce were exchanging bills. "You bet on us? What am I saying, of course you bet on us! Some friends..." Loki gave the group a thoroughly put-out look, turning back to Lopt as he nudged her shoulder with a ring box. Opening it, she gasped then laughed again at the white-gold diamond ring inside. Rather than size and opulence, Lopt had obviously chosen the ring for sheer beauty, delicate strands of precious metal woven in complex knot work surrounding the modestly sized but flawless diamond in the center. "My, you do make a hard act to follow..." She mused, stunned, as he gently placed the ring on her finger. "I'm glad I didn't design mine for that finger..."

At Lopt's quizzical look, Loki pulled out a larger ring box of her own and handed it to him. He looked appreciatively at the rings, then made a closer inspection. "Silver, tin and hematite, love?" He looked quizzically at his fiancé. "And, I can feel an enchantment as well, a powerful one. Let's see, travel and grounding?"

Loki smiled. "They are connected one to the other, and each has the power to travel dimensions. As long as one ring, or the person wearing it, remains here, the other can be used to reach your home and return. The connection will keep the path open. I've, I've been working on them for some time, your brother's hair was a great help..." She looked up at Lopt almost shyly. "I'd like to see your home, to see the differences and similarities. If we leave my ring with one of the team, we can both go, and return."

Lopt stared at her, dumbfounded for a minute, then met her eyes, his own glistening with tears. "Thank you," he whispered, looking at his love like a goddess fallen to earth (which, of course, she was) as he gathered her to him in an embrace of pure love. The two had completely forgotten the presence of their friends and family, simply basking in each other's love until Toni decided to ruin the moment.

"Day-um, girl. You done good! Gonna get some of that sweet godly prowess tonight!" As the billionaire proceeded to catcall, the rest began to laugh as the two gods of mischief looked around as if trying to remember where they were. Luckily, it seemed the perfect way to break the sexual tension, and soon the group was back to lounging around the couches.

"In all seriousness, though, I believe Lopt had another gift for his lovely lady," said Toni. "One that we've all discussed and helped plan."

"Does this have to do with the empty half of our floor being off-limits and under construction?" Wondered Loki, thinking that if it needed all of the team it must be something big for the home.

"Ooh, got yourself a smart one there!" Teased Claire, "Also yes. Now hurry up and tell her, we've got the car running already!"

With a glare at the archer, Lopt pulled out a picture frame, which Loki recognized as being the one from her bedside table. In the photo, Loki and Lopt sat smiling with Amanda and David, the brother and sister from the orphanage that Loki had spent so much time with. She didn't think anyone knew about the times she went back to visit, but everyone's knowing looks told her that she had been wrong. "I don't like this photo," he began, continuing before his fiancée had a chance to do more than glare. "It's too seasonal, and it seems lonely. I think we should be able to take more photos with them, don't you?" Loki looked at her lover, then around at the beaming group, unable to believe what she thought he meant.

"You mean?" She began hopefully, then stopped herself.

"Yes," he beamed down at her. "Now, how about we go give two orphans the Christmas present of their lives?" With this, he pulled out an almost-complete set of adoption paperwork, missing only her signature.

As the two Asgardians made out yet again, Claire gave a somewhat annoyed grumble. At the others' looks, she spoke up. "You guys do realize that in terms of presents, none of us are ever going to be able to top those two after this, right? It's not even fair!" This was met with deadpan looks from the team and a swat to the head from Bryce, before the group made their way down to the waiting car. This time, they actually took a stretch limousine despite Toni's dislike of them, because she wanted to make the night as special as possible for the tiny new team members they were about to pick up.

A/N: hehe, when I was writing this chapter, I commented to myself how they kept picking up strays to live in Toni's house, and then I had this image of Toni as Qui-gon Jin. "Another stray, Master?" *giggles*


	19. AN--Not a chapter

Hello All,

I'm sure you've noticed by now, the lack of updates in the last few weeks. Truth is, my muse for this story has wandered off somewhere, and has so far resisted my attempts to call her back. So, I am NOT, I repeat NOT abandoning this story, but it is going on a bit of a hiatus while I decide what I want to do next, and some of the last few chapters may be re-written.

I'll let you know if I re-write any existing chapters, so you can go back and re-read them, but with final projects in school and my general lack of motivation, I'm not sure when I'll get back to this fic. I really appreciate you all reading and reviewing, and I'll take all of my reviewers' suggestions in mind when I decide where to go from here.

Thanks and sorry,

Adele365


	20. AN and Poll

Hello! I know it's been a while since I put this story on hiatus, but I'm thinking of starting up writing again now that school's out and finals are done. Now, I don't have anything pre-written going out, so I'm going to ask for reader's opinions on how to go forward. there are three polls below, I'd really appreciate your opinions in reviews.

**1) Toni and Claire:**

This was based on a real-life relationship that went south, and it's really hard to write them all lovey-dovey after that. So that relationship is ending, the question is, should I:

-write the relationship for a bit, then have them break up amicably

-edit out their getting together in the first place, and let it just be an epic bromance

**2) Thanos**

how do you want him defeated? He has the potential to bring in actual plot and darken the crack-y goodness...That is unacceptable!

1) Team FredPool

2) Lady Loki on her period

3) The kids beat him somehow

4) allergies (this works with any of the other three)

**3) Captain America's boyfriend**

I've had some requests in the past for a significant other for Stephanie (Captain America). She actually already has a boyfriend, its just a long-distance relationship. This is referenced in Chapter 1, then pretty much ignored. Since people want her to have a BF, I'm considering bringing him in, so we have a couple of options:

He's a doctor with the peace corps, this is established.

options are these:

I don't want him to be american. At least not originally. Something about Captain America with an immigrant sits right with me. I'm not sure what nationality to have him be, originally.

I'm open for suggestions. also, whatever nationality he is, i need some kind of pet name in his native language for Stephanie.

So, beautiful, patient reviewers, write me reviews! The sooner these three things get decided, the sooner the next chapter gets out!

(^-^) Adele365


	21. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

**A/N: hello again, everybody! It looks like I've got 23 followers, which is more than I ever expected... In any case, I'm coming off of hiatus, and chapters should start coming as I get the inspiration for them.**

**A couple of important things first:**

**There's a fairly major edit to the plot in chapter 17, so go back and re-read that chapter first.**

**The question in my AN last chapter about Captain America's boyfriend are still open, though I have mostly decided. I actually found some old character notes for him, so I'm combining those with the suggestions I got from reviewers, to make my final decisions. He's probably going to show up next chapter, or the one after that. He is an OC, but he probably won't show up that much anyway.**

**As for the other two, Thanos's defeat is going to be a surprise, and Toni and Claire have been edited back to being friends... That's part of the edits to chapter 17.**

**I think that's it for the authors note, so enjoy!**

-XXXXX-

The limo (red and gold and JARVIS all over, since if Toni was going to have one, she was damn well going to make it HERS) pulled up to the orphanage right after dinnertime. Presents forgotten, all of the kids pressed their noses to the front windows, trying to see what all of the commotion was. Of course, what with the Iron Man color scheme, a lot of the older kids had a pretty good idea who was inside, and the Matron just looked on with a warm smile. She had packed Amanda and David's things while they ate, to preserve the surprise in store for the kids...

"Merry X-mas!" Shouted Claire, ignoring the doors in favor of jumping out of the limo's skylight and pronouncing the word 'ex-mas' instead of 'Christmas'. As she front flipped off the roof of the limo, using her former circus skills to good measure, she ended up landing in an awkward crouch to avoid falling on the tiny girl who had run to greet her. Each of the Avengers had continued to visit the orphanage after their Halloween fun, and each of them had a kid they had really connected with. For Claire, it was Maya, an absolutely tiny three year old with no survival instinct whatsoever. She picked the midget up and set her on her hip before swiftly moving to join the rest of the team on their way inside.

Unlike Maya the escape artist, Amanda and David were in the living room, sitting by the Christmas tree when the group found them. Amanda immediately ran to Loki, tackle-hugging her and knocking the both of them into a nearby couch. David was calmer than his sister, but just as excited, sitting on Lopt's lap next to the girls. Toni plonked a Santa hat on Lopt's head, then muttered, disgruntled, when the hat arranged itself so it sat perfectly without messing a hair on his head. Loki, from the floor where she had ended up with Amanda, gestured at her fiancé and turned his outfit into a Santa suit, which he accepted with a grin.

"So, little one, what would you like for Christmas?" He asked the boy on his lap. David flushed and muttered into Lopt's chest. "Hmm? Didn't quite catch that..." This was a lie. As an Asgardian... Jotun... Well, as a Demi-god, anyway, he had much better hearing than that of humans, and both he and Loki had heard David's bashful reply. Still, the little boy picked up his courage and said it again.

"You and Miss Loki to be my parents!" He said very fast, then hid his face again, this proving to be too much for the shy six-year-old to handle. Every adult in the room looked like they were about to melt at the cuteness, even Nate, though he hid it better than most.

"Well, I guess you and your sister are in luck, David. Do you know what we came here for?" Asked the Santa-clad Lopt. At the boy's shy and hopeful glance at Loki and his bouncing sister, Lopt and Loki both nodded and were immediately tackled again, the siblings switching places at some invisible sign to thank both of their new parents. Suddenly, Amanda seemed to think of something, and her bright face dimmed.

"Are you sure you really want us? I mean, it's not like we're you real kids... What if you have babies and decide you don't want us anymore?" At the girl's blunt but terrified question, Lopt hugged her closer.

"Oh, sweetie, no!" Cried Loki, clutching at David like a lifeline. "We'll never, ever do that to you! Do you want to know a secret?" Everyone else had quietly left the room at Amanda's question, leaving the four new family members alone by the tree. Amanda nodded with tears in her eyes, and Loki continued at a nod from Lopt. "Lopt and I, we' both adopted too. Thor's my sister, but our parents aren't really my parents. Is the same for Lopt. And when we found out that. We're adopted, we both went a little crazy, but Od- our fathers and mothers love us just the same. We know how it feels, so we'll never leave you, or get tired of you and send you back. That's a promise on my life!" As she spoke the last sentence, gold light built up around Loki and disappeared with a flash, tying the vow to her life and magic.

After Lopt confirmed what Loki had said, explained what the vow meant, and assured the kids that they would learn more about their new family soon, the worn-out but happy group emerged from the room.

"We've already loaded your bags in the limo, kids. Are you ready to go to your new home?" Asked Toni, getting down on one knee to look both six-year olds in the eye. At their excited nods, they sent Amanda and David to go say goodbye, the larger, bouncy Amanda dragging her smaller, quieter brother behind her as they said goodbye to all of their friends and promised to visit. Watching them, Toni stood up and huffed a laugh, turning to the new parents with a smirk. "You do realize that you've essentially just adopted a smaller, human version of you and Thor?"

Once goodbyes had been said, and after Toni slipped the Matron a check discreetly as she did at every visit, the Avengers plus two slipped back into the limo, the kids bouncing again as they looked at all of the drinks and snacks and the television built into the back of the car. By the time they reached the tower, however, the small new family had fallen asleep, the day's excitement proving too much, especially for the kids. Back at the tower, they carried the little ones up to their new apartment, leaving the Lokis with them as the rest of the team went back to the lounge for drinks.

-XXXXX-

**A/N- so there you are, first new chapter in quite a while. Kind of short, I know... The next chapter is probably going to be a time skip, so that the kids can be settled in. And yes, their relationship and personalities and going to be much like a young Thor and Loki, though not exactly.**

**Until... Whenever I update again, probably within a week or so...**

**Adele365**


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